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I didn't go to sleep that night. The day before I had a check-in call regarding my uni project. All of my group mates did. I don't remember what I was doing so late at night but the fact is - I didn't sleep. My partner was already in bed but still scrolling her phone. Suddenly she sits up and says that russians on social media are saying that "we all will be fucked", and that Ukrainians are commenting on hearing loud bangs in their cities. We sit in silence shocked for a couple of minutes. Then we hear it as well. A loud bang. The kind that shakes the ground. We hear car sirens. A moment passes before we hear another one. I started packing my backpack with my documents and money. My dad says it won't be necessary, that they are just attacking the strategic military buildings. I don't remember how the rest of the night/early morning went. I don't remember if I've slept. In the morning the president had announced that the war has started.

Two weeks later I would leave for Belgium with my partner to not sit on my family's shoulders, to not be a burden. Everything is going relatively well for me: I found a job, I have a place to live, I am not struggling with food. Of course I had to sacrifice my degree for the lack of language and my hobbies for the lack of free time. That is why I don't draw much anymore. I just hope that in the future I will be able to do it again.

Two years passed and I feel like people abroad got used to the war. I am not fully aware of the whole situation but from my side it feels like people are forgetting about us. Like we are receiving less support. Like we are starting to loose. I just hope that it's not true and that it just feels that way.

Though Internet has been really hostile to Ukrainian voices lately. And there is so much misinformation. My partner met a woman near the station who pretended to be Ukrainian to beg for money. She didn't speak any Ukrainian or, for that matter, russian, just English. She didn't expect someone to talk back to her in Ukrainian.

I just hope that we will win the war and it will happen soon. My whole being hurts when I read the news about russian war crimes and the tragedies that just keep happening to my people.

If you have anything to spare, consider donating to the Ukrainian army. Reach out to your government, show up to protests. I'm tired of seeing only Ukrainians doing it. We can't do this alone, we will need everything that we can get.

https://u24.gov.ua/

Слава Україні! Героям слава!

Really hard to talk about that. Two years ago I couldn't go to sleep...

Early in the morning I heard the most terrifying noises that I ever heard in my life before. My brain refused to work, it was a feeling like a giant monster slowly moving to destroy our house.

Ground was shaking and I felt vibration in our windows... and I had no idea what to do because of shock.

I tried to wake my family up, few minutes I tried to remember how to use my phone and my body was trembled...

What happened next I can't even remember, I took my pajama and cat and tried to think about what to do next.

But my mind was to much shocked, it was to much, I even forgot how to talk for a while...

Then we tried to get to parent's house, than we decided to leave our city...Few weeks later we had to leave our country...

It was hard, incredibly hard, but me and my family were lucky enough to escape and find some safe place.

I thought that I have no moral right to argue because not all of people that I knew before had same luck.

One year later I understood that can't exist so far from my home and decided to come back.

I do not like to argue, or begging for help even if its really hard, or spreading unpleasant news. Really hate to spread bad news...

But me and my country still needs your help, we need your support we need to be heard because we still have to survive somehow.

If you have enough energy for helping, you can donate, share information or even write some words of support...

Every single word is matters, and I feel incredibly great gratitude to everyone who helped me and helped my country!

If my post found someone who has no idea what I'm talking about, they have the opportunity to find out by watching the film "20 Days in Mariupol"(full documentary). It is about a wonderful city in eastern Ukraine, which was completely destroyed:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3D.....hannel=Dogwoof

Links for donations:

https://savelife.in.ua/en/donate/

https://www.hospitallers.life/

Any donation is important and very appreciated, even one dollar, even 25 cents (believe me this is averagely how much people donate at a time). And I remind you that the sooner we win, the sooner we won’t need to be financially supported as we are now.

An ex-colleague of mine mentioned yesterday that there may be contacts between Automattic and midjourney in that direction, but nothing is public yet and I don't have any more info. They probably won't have anything specific to share either, since they left the company weeks ago too. That being said:

I have no reason to doubt my ex-coworker word, they are a trustworthy person.

Tumblr's CEO has been absurdly enthusiastic (comically, even) about AI, and is a big fan of LLMs and 'AI' companies.

A deal with midjourney could solve tumblr financial issues (not the same company, but openAi is paying up to 5 million/year to news companies to use their content as training data... tumblr generates several orders of magnitude more content than any newspaper or any media company and it only would need a 20 to 30 million per year deal to be profitable)

This night, kamikazes drones hit the gas station - as a result of this hit, burning fuel spilled, and private residential buildings caught fire. The area of the fire is 3,700 square meters.

The emergency services managed to contain the fire in the residential quarter, saving 25 houses and more than 50 residents from the spread of the fire. However, more than a dozen households burned to the ground.

In one of the private houses, the bodies of 5 people were found, including 3 children: 7, 4 years old and a 6-month-old baby.

"Unfortunately, it is impossible to identify the body of the baby on the spot. The burning temperature was such that the bones and body of the baby turned almost into ashes. We are collecting everything and taking it to the morgue for examination. We assume that the mother was holding the children, hugging them and pressing them to her chest," he writes

The flower of our nation and the best of kind humanity. Those who care and those who are willing to fight to make a difference. Gone, just like that, again and again.

Obvious it works like that, but still so tragic, so unfair that more and more of the very best are lost under that flood of criminal, apathetic filth and envious violence.

"LRT", I guess.

Patches and pins "russian invasion of Ukraine 1998" were popular among the russian fans leading up to the first game in Kyiv:

The rhetoric in the russian media about Ukraine not really being a separate country intensified.

For the record, russia lost that game 3:2.

But all of this is nothing compared to the second game, in Moscow in 1999. Russia needed only to win in order to move on in the tournament. Ukraine could settle with a draw. And that is when the true madness unfolded.

Probably the best known episode was this headline in one of the biggest sports newspapers in russia:

You see, they had a player with the last name "Khokhlov". So, on the surface level, the headline says, "Kick, Khokhlov, save Russia!" However, if you read out the headline, it also says "Kick [slur word for Ukrainians], save russia!". The slogan is a paraphrase of one of the main slogans of the russian Black Hundreds (ultra-reactionary, ultra-nationalist pogromist monarchist movement in the russian empire in early 20th century), only in the original versions there was the slur for Jews there instead. The russians were very proud of that pun. It was everywhere at the time.

Vladimir Putin, who was the russian prime minister at the time, was present at the game. The way the russian commentators already went out of their way to keep singing his praises for no reason is a good indicator how russians tend to make a cult of personality around everyone who happens to be a figure of authority.

And then the game finished with a draw 1:1 after an unbeliavable goal by Andriy Shevchenko (and due to a mistake from russia's goalkeeper):

Putin got really upset. He stopped showing up at such sporting events for years after this.

The bus with the Ukrainian national team got attacked on its way to the stadium before the game (according to Shevchenko, russians threw bottles at it) and especially after the game (with all sorts of objects being thrown at it, from beer bottles to rocks).

But I guess we are so privileged, people scroll faster their dash when they see posts from those annoying privileged Ukrainians, who don't even have it that bad. I guess.

for my followers: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jul/07/victoria-amelina-obituary

She was a fiction writer who by necessity had to start writing about war crimes until the war killed her. She died way too young. She deserves to be remembered. She wanted to write fiction and use her imagination. She was forced to write about cruel, vicious reality until that reality ended her.

Americans, our country is treating Ukraine as a political football to toss around, our political discourse cynically acting like the victims of this conflict are somehow "privileged" (as if victims of any conflict are privileged, what a disgusting sentiment that is and if you hold it, please reexamine your thoughts). Ukrainians are still fighting and dying for survival, for democracy, for their very identity and culture.

Don't forget them.

You should have had a chance to tell more stories, Victoria. You should have had so much more time.

Here is one of her poems, translated into English. It is very poignant, and it is very reflective of our reality.

please boycott and don't spread russian music, literature, movies, series, art and russian artists! don't use trending russian music on Instagram or TikTok, don't popularize the culture of a terrorist country!

and please be sure to point it out to other social media users. this is the minimum you can do to avoid unnecessary trauma to the victims of russian aggression. the victims should not see the tolerance of the culture of the state that kills and tortures them every day, that destroys entire cities and creates environmental disasters killing hundreds of people!

earlier I wrote about why it is important to realize the level of guilt of the russians and not tolerate everything russian, in order to show the whole world and the russians themselves that their culture of terrorism and dancing on bones will not be tolerated in a civilized society!

russia is currently waging a full-scale genocidal war against Ukraine and taking part in the genocide of the Syrian people who are suffering from the terrorism of dictator Bashar al-Assad!

please show your respect and tolerance for Ukrainians and Syrians, boycott everything russian and educate others! do your part in the information war against imperialist xenophobic racist homophobic and nazi russia!