I didn’t know I could feel hate. Until Bucha

Image source: https://elle.ua/ludi/novosty/mamo-ya-bachu-vynu-pod-v-ukran-ochima-dtey/

War crimes, genocide, murder, rape… Words fail me. Words veil countless undertones of suffering. Yet use words I must.

I don’t think I ever felt hate before. But yesterday, late at night, when I opened the footage of war crimes in Bucha, something changed. In that instant, gone was my usual impulse to understand everyone and everything, — using reason. Gone was my attempt to meet every being, however murderous, — with kindness. Gone was any feeling inside me. Except the burning, jaw-clenching hate.

Hate came in waves. The first wave carried intercepted phone conversations of Russian soldiers boasting to their comrades about how many Ukrainian girls they raped.

Then came the wave of photos. Naked bodies of Ukrainian women. Those thrown from balconies of their homes. Those burnt. Those tortured. Those with disfigured faces. Those whose children survived, having watched their mothers being gang-raped. The children whose hair turned grey.

Then, the wave of mass graves. And of bodies scattered on the street. A dead parent with two kids and one suitcase. A man on a bicycle, overturned. Black rubbish bag on this man’s head, shot. Red nail polish on that woman’s hands, tied behind.

Hate comes raw. I feel it without words. Unveiled.