A soldier in Russia refused to go fight in Ukraine. He was found in a noose the next day. The official story is suicide but he has a broken arm and heavy bruising in the genital area.

Today 8 more soldiers in Murmansk (a city in Russia) refused to go fight in Ukraine. The commanding officers locked them in the barracks. Let’s hope they survive.

The new thing on Russian TV is that the soldiers fighting on the Ukrainian side in Debaltseve are black. Meaning, African black. Or, rather, African-American black. Hordes of these black Ukrainian soldiers are supposedly running around Debaltseve*, scaring Russian-speaking old ladies and their little granddaughters. The black soldiers are obviously all drunk and they are breaking into the apartments of peaceful white folks to rob them. 

No footage has been offered in support of the “witness statements” by the scared Russian-speaking old ladies but I’m eagerly awaiting the creation of that footage. I thought that nothing could equal the Russian story about Ukrainian children supposedly killing all of the birds that have red and blue plumage because of how much they hate the colors of the Russian flag**. But I was wrong.

* Debaltseve is a small town in Ukraine where Russian terrorists are on the offensive in spite of the cease-fire. 

** In case you just fell off a tree and feel disoriented, the birds are fine. Nobody touched them.

I left Ukraine in 1998 because I hated it.

I hated the passivity, the fatalism, the triumphant gloominess inherited from the Soviet times, the cynicism that was a way of life, the corruption that everybody saw as the only possible response to reality.

I hated the indifference to politics, the self-hatred, the contempt for one’s own culture and the fawning adoration of the uncivilized and uncultured neighbor.

I hated the endless wait for a good tsar, the stagnation, and the adamant refusal of absolutely everybody to accept responsibility for absolutely anything in their lives.

I saw no hope that this would ever change, so I left. I wasn’t one of those fortunate immigrants who stay in touch, travel back to their country every year, and proudly answer the question of where they are from. But of course, I always wanted to be one. 

And in December of 2013, I realized that I’d been wrong. Something had been happening, brewing, changing, and the Ukraine I was sure would never be reborn suddenly came into existence. I’ve never been more eager to recognize that I made a huge mistake in my analysis. Finally, my country of origin was shedding the Soviet legacy and recovering the greatest traditions of its pre-Soviet existence.

This hopeful, enthusiastic, joyful, bustling and active Ukraine had come together in 1918 to work on a shared project of independence, social justice, and civilizational advances and was crushed by its enraged and confused neighbor. Now that drive towards change and civilization re-emerged, but the irate and jealous neighbor was bent on destroying it once again. Ukrainians had finally shaken off their inner Russian – a lazy, fatalistic, cynical and useless creature – and the actual Russians couldn’t forgive that.

It is absolutely devastating to see history repeat itself this way. But Ukraine’s is also a very inspiring story. Because if you can come back from the kind of history Ukraine has been cursed with, then anything is possible and anything can be overcome.

Because they look like sumo fighters.

Delicious, by the way.

“Why does everybody say that youth is the best time of one’s life and that being young is amazing? I’m young but I don’t feel amazing at all.”

“That’s because everything that comes after is even worse.”

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If you are over the age of thirty and you have achieved absolutely nothing in life, this means you are a good, honest human being.

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A boy who spent his childhood browsing websites was shocked when he went outside and saw fully clothed women.

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“When I get drunk, I fear nobody!”

“Not even your wife?”

“Man, I never managed to get that drunk!”

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Our enemies are very stupid. They think we are the enemy when, in reality, they are the enemy.

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And finally, the clearest answer to the question of why Russians hate Americans so much: