When Russia attacked, we were told to ‘take it easy’

It felt like you were in a room full of people, you were being raped and everybody was telling you: “Why are you screaming?” They were saying: “Why are you showing us your hands in blood? Take it easy. It will be fine. It’s nothing.”

I do strongly believe that the invasion that happened, and the war right now, are the result of nobody pushing Russia back. The whole world was watching.

Six months later, it is still incredibly painful because the world is learning the same lessons about Russia that we learned eight years ago.

We knew the Russians would attack.

The legacy [of this war] will be the next generation of children. As a country that came from so much poverty and distress and war, we were all hoping that our children would not have to go through that. We were all hoping that we would raise them spoiled and normal.

We now have a generation of children that has seen dead bodies at different ages, that knows how to act during air raid sirens and knows their blood type. That knows life as refugees.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.