Russia’s war distresses a distant daughter

I promise, I am not the enemy. Or, at least that’s what I told myself since Russia dropped the bombs on Ukraine. Now, both countries are attacking each other, yet even though I am on the other side of the world, somehow I feel the closest to the war.

I remember the first time I felt the shock. A few years ago, my friend sauntered to school one day, telling me she couldn’t visit her grandmother in Ukraine because she had passed away when her caretaker had run away after the bombs dropped. I know I wasn’t the one who did it, but the guilt that came with knowing my home country had, made betrayal feel like rubbing salt into the wound of a nationality being stripped away.

So I started to compensate for it. As soon as the war started, one of my Ukrainian friends and I created fundraisers and raised money that we would send to Ukraine. I was an ally, but somehow I could never shake the feeling like I always needed to prove it. 

My whole life was centered around my Russian identity. It was my first language, the food I ate, my favorite place to go as a child, and somehow it just felt right. Years later, my country never felt so foreign to me as it did now. 

The change was gradual. First, it was my mom telling me that if people asked, tell them I’m American. I was confused, why should I hide such a big part of me? 

Then, the commentary started. One of my Russian friends walked into my class one day, eyes wide with tears. She said someone told her, “You should go tell your friend Putin to stop bombing Ukraine.” At that moment, I felt like we were the smallest people in the world.

I was curious about what my Russian grandparents’ perspective on the situation was. My grandpa had told me he does not support the war, but did not deny that he supports communism. It felt like such a big slap in my face where suddenly my political viewpoints were contradicting with my own family’s, where it made me question if loving these people was even ethically appropriate.

 It was hard to put myself in their shoes when they grew up in a communist era that shaped their political viewpoints and I grew up in a democratic country.

Maybe it wasn’t such a bad idea to pretend that I had no association with a country that was a walking red flag. I didn’t notice it at first, but I slowly started to incorporate my nickname, “Allie” into my everyday life and it became an identity that more people knew me as, starting to replace “Aleksandra.” I convinced myself it was because it was shorter, not because the spelling of my full name gave away the Russian background of it.

In 2023, I found myself sitting at a table teaching my grandma English to practice for her citizenship test because she got a permanent apartment in America. In May 2024, when I turned 16, my mom recommended that I revoke my Russian citizenship because the taxes that are being paid for my passport would go to funding the Russian military effort.

Almost three years later, the war has not stopped yet I still think to myself how one person’s decision affected millions of people’s lives of all nationalities. My relationship with a country that had betrayed me shattered my identity. It left me alone to figure out how to piece it back together in a way that is socially acceptable.