00:00Today, I want to talk about something personal, about discoveries that completely changed how
00:08I see the war in Ukraine. I'm a professional writer. Even though I've lived in California
00:14for more than 20 years, I used to write in Russian and publish my books in Russia.
00:2117 of them came out. More if you count translations. I also founded the largest online writing school
00:31in the Russian-speaking world. Over 50,000 students watched my lectures and read my articles.
00:39But when Russia invaded Ukraine, I sent an anti-war letter to all my subscribers.
00:46That one email ended my career in Russia overnight. Many of my followers were professionals in the
00:55publishing industry. None of them could afford to risk their jobs or reputations by working with
01:02someone as unreliable as me. I don't blame them. Everyone has families to protect. But I had no
01:11choice. I had to speak up to say that not all Russians are like Putin and his circle. After that,
01:18I stopped writing. Completely. I didn't have the strength. And I didn't understand why write at all.
01:27The country I was born in, the readers I wrote for, had gone mad.
01:34All I could hear were voices cheering for war. And that was unbearable.
01:41Only now, almost four years after the invasion, have I found the strength to start writing again.
01:49My new novel will be about the war in Ukraine.
01:53Marika, a vice president of a large company in Moscow, hides a terrible secret. Her daughter,
02:01Alisa, dropped out of Harvard Medical School to go to Ukraine and help the wounded.
02:08Marika's company is tied to the state. If the FSB finds out, she'll lose everything,
02:15including the financial security of her elderly parents, who depend entirely on her.
02:20Then, one day, Alisa disappears. She stops answering messages. The only person who can help Marika
02:28find her daughter is an American engineer named Leo, a man she once loved in her youth. He's now in
02:36Kyiv, helping Ukrainians build drones. Marika reaches out and asks him to find Alisa.
02:44I'm not making this up. I take dozens of interviews with people drawn into this war. A Moscow banker,
02:54a Ukrainian doctor, an Indian soldier who volunteered to fight for Russia, a school
03:00principal from Kharkov who drives cars across the border to make ends meet. I speak with people who
03:07help bypass sanctions. And with those who understand drones better than most engineers.
03:15What they tell me is blows my mind. And I'll be sharing short videos here with the discoveries that
03:22keep changing how I see everything. For a long time, I tried to protect my sanity by turning everything I
03:30knew
03:30about the war into abstraction. I listened to analysts, professors, experts. Everything was correct, logical,
03:38factual. But I had no image before my eyes. I was looking the other way. Out of pure self-preservation,
03:48I had cancer, triggered by the stress that came with the start of the war.
03:54My brain replaced reality with something it could handle. I imagined the war in images of World War II,
04:03the films, the newsreels I'd seen as a child. Because that was long ago. Safe. Not mine.
04:13But when I began watching YouTubers broadcasting from Kyiv, I was shaken. It was not about the past.
04:21It was about us. The living. Our modern cities. Glass towers. Hondas. Mercedes. Street cafes under bright
04:31orange umbrellas. That's when it hit me. Many people refuse to look at this war because it's
04:38happening to people just like them. It's easy to watch wars that happen somewhere else. To other people.
04:45People who look different, live differently. People you can safely believe you'll never become.
04:53Even among those who support the war, everything is abstract. They imagine World War II heroes and
04:59villains but cheer for their opposite side. That's why they feel no horror. No empathy.
05:06They can picture a Ukrainian nurse named Nadia, sitting on the cold floor of a half-ruined hospital,
05:13too exhausted to stand. How can you scream Nazis or fascists when you see her?
05:21Nadia's native language is Russian. At home, she has a terrified cat that hides under the bathtub.
05:28There's sometimes running water. Sometimes not. Sometimes light. Sometimes darkness. And her phone
05:37keeps buzzing. Launch detected. Heading toward Tsurkune. Turn back toward Zhuki village.
05:45She head over the bridge. I subscribe to those telegram channels. I see what they see.
05:51Whole cities living with death circling above them. Every day it will take someone. Who? You? Your loved ones.
06:02Tomorrow you might go to work. To an office, a store, a salon. Or tomorrow you might be holding
06:09what's left of your own arm. And under those horrifying updates, there are likes. Thousands of them.
06:20The supporters of the invasion watch and cheer. But that's not the whole story.
06:26The same thing happens on the Russian side in telegram channels tracking strikes on Belgrade
06:32and other border regions. Enemies in this war can literally see into each other's windows.
06:39Neither side has any pity left. Only exhaustion. And the first for revenge.
06:47That exhaustion. I can't take it anymore. I have no strength left. It's the one thing I hear in almost
06:55every conversation now. And then comes my personal fear. If they are all too tired, will Putin win?
07:03I'm not going to pick up a rifle myself. I'm just cheering for good to defeat evil. We all expect
07:11someone
07:11else to do the fighting. Not us. Because deep down, we don't want to hold that bandaged stump in our
07:20arms.
07:21I don't dare judge the fatigue. But it still terrifies me. That evil might prove to the world
07:29that it can't get away with it. I can speak for all Russians. I can only speak for myself. I
07:38know
07:38how to tell stories that warm the heart and make history understandable. If you want to see what I
07:45mean, look at my novels, the Russian treasure series on Amazon. That's my craft, my duty. So I'll keep
07:54writing. And I'll keep talking. Because I'm a Russian author. Because I can stay silent. And because
08:03someone has to bear witness. This story is still unfolding on the page and in real life. If you'd like
08:11to follow its path and know when the novel comes out, click the link in the description and join my
08:17newsletter.
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