Volodymyr Kukharenko

PROTEMOS Translation Company, Ukraine

Aug 28, 2025

I want to share with you a conversation I had with a Russian woman half a year before the war, at one of the business conferences. For context, she fit the definition of a “good Russian”: she hated Putin and thought he was doing wrong. But…

The conference was over, and some participants went to a restaurant for dinner. I ended up at the same table, next to her. Someone mentioned that one of the next conferences would be in St. Petersburg, and I said I would not go there. For me, traveling to Russia has been taboo since 2014, both for moral and safety reasons. That made her burst out. Here is our dialogue:

She: Yes, Putin is wrong in all aspects, but why should it affect us? Don’t follow your propaganda!
Me: What propaganda?
She: You have propaganda too! Russia has it, it’s disgusting, but you have it as well!
Me: Russia occupied our land and killed many Ukrainians. It also arrested many who traveled to Russia. I don’t need propaganda apart from those facts to avoid going to Russia. Which propaganda do you mean?

Then she stumbled, looked at the three Israelis sitting at the same table with us, and said:

She: But you do have Nazis! And antisemitism!!!
Me: Really? How come our president is a Jew, then?
She: Well… He’s from Eastern Ukraine, but you have it in the West!
Me: Do you have any proof or cases you can list?
She: Well… okay, I don’t know about today for sure, but you had it during WW2!

That trick was dirty as she intentionally wanted to pull Israelis at her side in this argument, and I was shocked by it. But also, it is factually incorrect. Israel has the official list of the “Righteous Among the Nations” that includes all people who saved Jews from the Nazis. Ukraine has 2707 people on that list, which makes it 4th among all countries. Russia has only 221. And if you compare population proportions, the average Ukrainian saved Jews 33 times more often than the average Russian. Moreover, some Jews served in the Ukrainian Insurgent Army and later participated in the creation of Israel’s army. Today, Ukraine has the lowest level of antisemitism in Europe, several times lower than in Russia.

When the war started, she met my colleague at another conference and said: “You are better off than we Russians because at least you can fight it.” It made my colleague speechless…

She lives in the UK, but her business is in Russia. So she’s against the war, but she finances it. Her son-in-law narrowly avoided being drafted (no idea how, but I guess money helped), and her little grandson will grow up consuming Putin’s narratives in kindergarten and may end up in some foreign land 20 years later. She isn’t pulling them out.

That Russian woman has a mishmash in her head. She doesn’t like Putin but still partly believes his narratives. And that’s the case with many so-called “good Russians,” including much of the Russian opposition. They don’t really want freedom for their neighbors, just a “better kind of empire,” whatever that means.

…………

4 a.m No. 4 EFFING A.M. No, I do not have insomnia. But I have Russian drones and rockets dropping around… explosions are heard all the time, sometimes windows tremble…

I cannot remember how many sleepless nights I had in recent 3.5 years.

So when I meet a Russian asking me “Why you don’t want to talk”, this is one of the reasons. And there are many others… In fact, I cannot even complain if I compare myself to many Ukrainians that were less lucky than me…

………

Every dollar spent in the Russian Federation ends up as taxes that fuel the war against Ukraine.

If you are still working with companies inside Russia, you are contributing to that machine. Large corporations may sponsor rockets or fighter jets, while smaller businesses may “only” cover the cost of bullets. But the impact is the same, it helps prolong the suffering.

I want to be clear: I have nothing against working with Russian individuals who have completely severed ties with their country’s economy. It’s nothing about ethnicity; it’s about the economy of war. The problem begins when money flows into the Russian budget, because every extra ruble collected means more destroyed homes, more broken families, and more lives lost.

History has shown us how dangerous it is to excuse “small” roles in a system of crimes. Many people in concentration camps never pulled a trigger, they “just” pushed buttons, filled tanks with gas, or carried bodies. Later they claimed: “We didn’t know.”

Well, today everyone knows. The photos and videos are there for all to see, as real as they are horrifying. If you still choose to do business with Russia, it means either you don’t care, or you have found a way to deceive yourself.