We are from Donetsk, in the eastern Donbas region. My mother speaks Russian. But instead of the “liberation” she never asked for, the only things my mother has gotten from Russia have been pain, fear and displacement — twice. In 2014, as Russia triggered a separatist war, my mother fled Donetsk, leaving behind her apartment and her job. She relocated to Bucha, near Kyiv, to build a new life. Eight years later, Russia forced her to run away again…

My mother escaped that hell in one piece, but she will never forget the horrors Russia has put her through. Russia lost my Russian-speaking mother forever, the opposite of what Putin hoped to achieve with this war. And she is not the only one.

Hatred toward Russia in Ukraine has never been this uniform and deeply felt.

A former colleague from Donetsk recently wrote on Facebook: The Russians “did everything so that even those who did not consider themselves Banderites became one” — a reference to followers of the controversial Ukrainian nationalist leader Stepan Bandera. Svyatoslav Vakarchuk, one of the most popular Ukrainian singers and a former lawmaker, even wrote a poem: “Where did you come from, hatred? I didn’t wake you up at night. I didn’t offer you meals. I didn’t give you my keys.”