As they aid Ukrainians, Russians abroad struggle with their own identity
When Ilia heard about the exodus of Ukrainian refugees through Berlin’s main train station – a transit point for those escaping Russia’s invasion – he boarded a daylong flight from his home in Sydney, Australia, to get there.
Ilia (who prefers not to use his last name because he wants to be able to travel to Russia when needed) was born and raised in Moscow but has lived most of his adult life in Australia working as an information technology engineer. He’s part of a vibrant, mixed Russian-speaking community there, where divisions between those from Russia and Ukraine are rarely delineated, he says.
But when war in Ukraine came, he suddenly imagined that the Ukrainians he dances salsa with in his downtime would look at him differently –
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