I'm Russian-born expat with healthy addition of Polish blood and some Donbass/Don Region ties in the past, so allowing to brainwash myself would be risky for my mental health, indeed. My prevailing current mood was handily captured by Jan Matejko in his famous painting Stańczyk during a ball at the court of Queen Bona contemplates the loss of Smolensk.

Propaganda from both sides of the conflict is bordering on alternate history/military science fiction increasingly, here my profound interest in science fiction and Ancient Chinese history* also helps. ;)

I write here mainly in Russian, but also in English. Language switching greases the gears, lest they turn rusty.

Proxy-WWIII we’re tumbling after is nasty, possibly worse than Cold War I ever was. Colder than ice-nine in Cheshire Cat’s cradle. (We already have a big slew of valuable rock & metal songs, as usual in times of the impending troubles; see also John Shirley’s Eclipse Trilogy for interesting comparisons with early cyberpunk visions of Russia-NATO war, words of his wisdom are now quickly attaining flesh.)

I hope, though, to see someday the same level of respect, friendship, and genuine warmth, despite prominent differences, between Russian and American officials in Washington and Moscow that Kissinger and Dobrynin had had in 1970s, for example.

*I consider the incoming epoch somewhat analogous to Zhanguo in Ancient China (after the waning of ‘unipolar moment’ under Zhou dynasty, and before the Imperial Unification under Qin in 221 BC), that was blood-thirsty and calamitous, but, not so paradoxically as it might look, gave a never-seen again kickstart to science and philosophy in China. Mao Zedong’s short-lived The Hundred Flowers/The Hundred Schools of Thought campaign initially seeked to promote the comparable flourishing, and the term Hundred Schools itself comes from the Warring States era.