The first years were very difficult. I lost everything: friends, family, home, job.
I didn't lose them physically, I lost them mentally. We were in different informational and cultural fields — 
I lived in Lviv, they lived in Donetsk. Everyone around was shouting about the war with russia, 
but in Donetsk they believed that it was a civil war.
The first years I thought that everything would end quickly. Either Donetsk and Luhansk would become part of russia. 
Or the Ukrainian military will push out the radicals and everything will be as it was before. I really wanted the war to end. For them to stop shooting and bombing.
Each blamed the other side. Provocations were getting spread in social media.
In the first years, I learned to perceive information critically. There was so much of it around, from, so to speak, "official sources", which was superimposed on a total distrust of the authorities, that in the midst of everything, my reaction was to withdraw completely into myself. I didn't watch or read the news. I drew, but I drew without reflecting on the events. 
I tried to dive into myself and get those handfuls of “me” in there.
All art is gathered around me and around my feelings.
I did not assign themes to the works, I did not name them. I just created them, involved in real hypergraphia.
And what was happening around me?
Life was boiling around. War was happening around. A terrible hybrid war.
Viruses from it clung to me and plunged me into an even greater abyss. I didn't have a tool to overcome it at that time.
I lived in Lviv for a year and a half and did not learn Ukrainian. I knew it, understood it, but could not speak fluently. Actually, I didn't really want to, because then it seemed to me that russian was my native language. That I have to carry it with me, that it is my culture. The culture of the thug-Donetsk collaborator, well lubricated by russian propaganda.
I carried with me more destruction than life. But I didn't think so myself.
I was a pacifist. I was against guns, against war. I put up large "Not War" leaflets around Donetsk, and I heard voices directed at me speaking about venality. But I did not understand them.
I met my Ukrainian-speaking wife, moved to a Ukrainian-speaking village near Kyiv region. But even there I didn’t start speaking more Ukrainian. Because Kyiv was close, because almost everyone in my circle spoke russian. Almost everyone listened to russian music and watched russian movies. Only over time - in long years - the seed of Ukrainianism germinated in me. I started listening to Ukrainian music. First "Kurgan", one album, one song.
Then Palindrom, Yuriy Bondarchuk, and soon my entire Spotify was completely filled with Ukrainian content. But at the same time, I listened and watched to russian content. Oxymoron, Slava KPSS and other dirt. I assured myself that this is the opposition, that Varlamov, Lyadov, Navalny, Noise are all oppositionists. That they are pro-Ukraine, and I see nothing wrong with watching and listening to them. Oh well.
For some reason, I was sure that russian was better! That we do not have Ukrainian-speaking content. That all these “versus”, meet ups, that all this is only in russia. That we can't do that. In particular, Navalny's channel, 
who was conducting an investigation.
I asked myself the question: why don't we have such things? And in fact we did! I just didn't look for them, I munched what was served to me on a silver platter. By doing so, I harmed myself and my country. Because I earned money for russian bloggers, because I earned views for the occupiers. And in return, Ukrainian speakers remained without support.
When quarantine started, it was a different time for me. The work stopped, the running stopped. Reflection on life and further actions began. This moment can be denoted as the one that made me stop and look around. 
I was sitting at home, I had time. There was time to think, time to do something, between work. I picked up “The nation of vegetables” book. Since that time, I realized that I am a "tired vegetable". And almost everyone around me is the same, only with a difference in qualifications. Since then, I started listening to Ukrainian bloggers and Ukrainian music. To think in the Ukrainian range without trying to look beyond the "curb".That was the first push. But still, I stayed on the daily course.
I already started collecting books, I subscribed to Ukrainian cultural figures’ Patreons, I started collecting Ukrainian art, began to read books about the Ukrainian Executed Renaissance, about the Sixtiers. I began to fall into Ukrainian culture. It captivated me, took me completely.
I wanted to look at Ukrainian art, I wanted to create Ukrainian art.
But the culture of the past would not let me go.
I was still focused on myself, my family and work.
Life was whirling around me. It was always around me. Loud cases of activists, Sternenko, Handziuk — all this did not сoncern me. I began to hear, but did not hear well enough.
The best example (I didn't realize it at the time) was my godfather. He went to protests, blocked pro-russian channels. And I jokingly called him "a nazi". I repeated pro-Kremlin methods, although I did not comprehend it myself.
I did everything to provide for my family. To live alone and live through my family.
And he lived through his country.
I thought egotistically, and he thought globally.
I was thinking about how to create comfort in the family, and he was thinking about how to create a normal country.
I was planning to go to a protest so many times - for LGBT support, for saving Kvitkovy dom, for closing 112 TV channels, for Sternenko. But I always did not have enough time - I worked, painted, was busy.
And only now... Only after February 24 did everything fall into place.
I understood everything in one day. In one moment. Everything I did before no longer made sense.
All the paintings, all the books, all my possessions and all the money. None of this mattered now. The only thing that mattered was what the godfather did.
He took up arms, as he intended, and went to war. And I looked at him, but I could not utter a single word, because 
I understood that he was going to defend our country. Going without questions and hesitation. He is going without all these ambiguities and reflections..
He goes despite the fact that many people did not understand him, many people judged him, called him a "Nazi".
He's going... And I'm staying. I’m staying, cowardly and shyly lowering my eyes.
I was wrong, I did very little. And only a great tragedy could convince me otherwise.