29 MARCH 2023 — The world’s unfairness eats me alive. Especially in Ukraine. I recently read on LinkedIn that employees from the Russian office of one my Ukrainian friend’s former employers get new positions in Amsterdam, London, New York, Sydney … pretty much wherever they want. Since February 2022 many educated Russians have an amazing window of opportunities to get themselves a much better life.
They claim to be victims of the Russian regime, which many of them apparently only found out about in February 2022. So they take refuge in countries of “the decadant West” as their government calls it. And many of these companies take them out of the goodness of their heart because, of course. “ordinary Russians are not guilty, it’s not their fault”.
But let me explain what it looks like from the perspective of my Ukrainian friend.
It’s because Ukrainians are being murdered, tortured and raped by the army of Russians (not Putin personally) that every day they now get to call themselves victims of the regime and move to European capitals and work at top firms.
It’s because whole cities of Ukraine are being razed to the ground by Russians they can now say “look how crazy Putin is, we need to escape” and go enjoy London pubs, Parisian bakeries and nice walks in Amsterdam.
They made their choice back in their country, for decades kept their eyes closed on the atrocities of their government and now have escaped the responsibility.
They made Ukrainians deal with the consequences of their choice, which ruined millions of lives and sent hundreds thousands Ukrainians to their death – while moving to their comfortable, better lives in Lisbon, Munich and Vienna.