I am very grateful to Monroe for these words. We are not responsible for the cultural environment in which we live, but for the values we derive from it. So even less do I intend to apologize for the fact that I was born in Moscow - I am very proud of it. I will never betray the four generations of my family who have lived in this beautiful city since 1930. Moreover, there is no need to apologize for the fact that I have family in Ukraine, where I spent a third of my life. Ukrainian is not only the language I speak, not only the unique culture to which my family belongs, it is a certain system of values and worldview. I am very proud of my Ukrainian family and especially my grandmother, who survived World War II, the 1946-1948 famine, and Putin's invasion in 2022. She will be 91 soon.

As for comment section, at first, I didn't pay much attention to this epic discussion. (After all, many people migrated to Medium directly from Twitter). But I was struck by another fact in the comments Monroe kindly shared in his opinion post. How quickly such people find each other. Joining interests and forming opinions uncompromisingly and forthrightly. "Yes, you are probably right. The best way to ensure a simpler and safer world for us is to destroy everything we don't like.” People unfortunately often choose simple explanations and simple solutions. When a straightforward method of thinking is transformed into a straightforward method of action we get the Putin regime, its war and heinous crimes unheard of in the center of Europe since 1945. Just call a foreign culture "toxic" and the road is open.

This is why I shared the article about Surkov: You need to fight not with people but with their destructive ideas, not with culture but with the lack of it.