My opinion is that you are lucky. As we have seen in Bucha and other locations, the Russians don't appear interested in logic. First, the Russians have kidnapped 800,000 Ukrainian children and only a few hundred have returned to Ukraine. I fear that the vast majority of those children will never be reunited with their parents again. Your kids could have been targets. Your wife is a very attractive woman. The Russians have pillaged, raped, and murdered plenty of innocent and innocuous people in dozens of other towns and cities. Enough said.
I forgot to add that there was a chance that if we went to the west they would force us to get the Covid vaccine. More dangerous to me than bullets.
If the Russians had won, it would have had to have been quick. I doubt we would have seen the Irpin/Bucha levels of butchery. Russia would have tried hard to convince the world everything was normal.
We know people who survived Kherson and are still surviving in Hola Prystan. They endure. We knew many people who escaped Donetsk, Lugansk and Crimea in 2014. Same story. Some died, but a small minority. Most lost their businesses, homes, etc. etc. Americans were able to leave - Russia wanted them gone.
I had wondered why you didn't flee so appreciated hearing your reasoning.
"Though they do not talk about it, the disruption that returning families experienced seems pretty obvious." I can imagine.
Same phenomenon as the Covidians not wanting to mention the lies they accepted.
Good on you, Graham for thinking it through and avoiding the 'panic' which, as we know is very contagious-like.
I really enjoyed this one.
Your logic seems solid about stay/leave. I suspect even an empowered woman may have agreed - empowered doesn't mean they are always ruled by emotion.
Not always. Subject of my next blog. Stay tuned.
My opinion is that you are lucky. As we have seen in Bucha and other locations, the Russians don't appear interested in logic. First, the Russians have kidnapped 800,000 Ukrainian children and only a few hundred have returned to Ukraine. I fear that the vast majority of those children will never be reunited with their parents again. Your kids could have been targets. Your wife is a very attractive woman. The Russians have pillaged, raped, and murdered plenty of innocent and innocuous people in dozens of other towns and cities. Enough said.
I forgot to add that there was a chance that if we went to the west they would force us to get the Covid vaccine. More dangerous to me than bullets.
If the Russians had won, it would have had to have been quick. I doubt we would have seen the Irpin/Bucha levels of butchery. Russia would have tried hard to convince the world everything was normal.
We know people who survived Kherson and are still surviving in Hola Prystan. They endure. We knew many people who escaped Donetsk, Lugansk and Crimea in 2014. Same story. Some died, but a small minority. Most lost their businesses, homes, etc. etc. Americans were able to leave - Russia wanted them gone.
It was a gamble. Life is a gamble.