Look, I can’t even begin to describe how much support from communities like @Official_NAFO has meant to me throughout the past 11-ish months. The fact that foreigners from all over the world care about Ukraine and Ukrainians enough to spend every free minute they have fundraising

for our army and pressuring their own politicians and debunking Russian propaganda is… amazing. It has renewed my faith in humanity at a time when it was barely hanging by a thread, and I’ll never get over how incredible the feeling of worldwide support is. And I know you guys

care so much it hurts sometimes. And I know that’s precisely why some actively pro-Ukrainian foreigners feel very strongly about being labelled as “spectators” or whatever, but here’s the thing: as much as we value your support, we know damn well that you guys have a privilege

we simply don’t have. At the end of the day, everyone who isn’t currently in Ukraine (or who doesn’t have family here) can log off and breathe out. Even if it’s only for a minute. The emotions you feel are incredibly strong and taxing, and the work you do is incredibly helpful,

but PHYSICALLY you’re probably not in as much danger and discomfort as most Ukrainians/people currently in Ukraine. There’s nothing bad about logging off for a while or distracting yourself from the horrific events unfolding in my country — in fact, just an hour ago I was

happily drinking my coffee, listening to a wellness podcast and actively forcing myself to *not* scroll twitter or think about the war for an hour our two. And then the air raid siren went off and I was yet again reminded that, as much as I’d like to mentally distance myself

from everything that’s been happening over the past year (at least, for a short while), I am still physically present in a country that’s facing daily terrorist attacks. And logging off twitter just isn’t enough — not when you have to climb ten flights of stairs several times

per day because of the constant power outages, not when the air raid alerts howl in the distance, and especially not when you know your kid is currently sitting in an underground shelter with his daycare buddies. And I’ll never get tired of repeating that I’m one of the lucky

ones — Kyiv is well-protected, our infrastructure is holding up admirably (all things considered) and I’m doing relatively okay. A LOT of Ukrainians are facing much harder challenges every day. So obviously they’re going to be more traumatised, angrier, and more stressed-out.

And I’d love for everyone who supports Ukraine to just think about the mental pressure living in a war zone for 11+ months puts you under. Unless you’ve been through something similar in scope, you probably can’t really imagine (and that’s not criticism — I wouldn’t have been

able to imagine anything remotely like this last January, either!) what if *feels* like, but that’s exactly why empathy is such an important thing to have and to actively practice.