Insomnia, fear and a feeling of not recognizing the country have marked the days of Russian youtuber Olga Kovalenko, who has lived in Brazil for three years.
With a channel that had almost 600,000 followers as of Tuesday afternoon (15), she used to post videos about her country’s culture and differences from Brazil, in a humorous “Russian gringa” language. as the titles of some of your videos say.
Since February 24, however, with the invasion of Russian troops in Ukraine, the agenda of the Olga do Brasil channel has obviously changed. And, if in the beginning it was the bombings and the images of destruction that most afflicted, a concern has been added in recent days: censorship.
In recent weeks, Vladimir Putin’s government has already banned independent media and passed a law that provides up to 15 years in prison for anyone who divulges “false information” about what Moscow calls a “special military operation” — a euphemism for the word war. .
Afraid that the norm could be used for anyone who spoke truths about the conflict that would sound inconvenient for the Kremlin, some outlets even withdrew from the country.
In a video published on Monday, with more than 250,000 views in just over a day, Olga narrated the climate of fear and censorship in her country and the fear of her family that she is a victim of the information war.
“A few days ago my uncles had a visit [de um] government official asking about some documents of my mother and mine. When my mom found out, she called me in a panic immediately, literally screaming into her cell phone that I need to stop everything I do, delete all the videos and stop talking to anyone about this subject, from saying I’m from Russia.” reported.
“She cried a lot and is very scared, because nobody knows anything, if it was just a coincidence, if it was a threat.”
THE sheet Olga says that it is not really possible to know the nature of this visit – some of her acquaintances who live in Russia have said that it may not even have anything to do with their activity. But the mere possibility of that scares her.
“The destructive role of war is not just about houses. The destruction is also mental and psychic”, he says.
She narrates how she felt scared when the lights went out during a show in São Paulo, as if they could take the opportunity to attack her. It was irrational, she knows, but there is an explanation. “In Russia there is an expression that I don’t know how to translate [para o português]which speaks of an animal fear, a fear with no clear factor, something you feel in your skin.”
She says the war has shaken the morale of the Russian people. “We always see ourselves as a people who liberated Europe from Nazism, who brought peace. There are no words to describe what it’s like to wake up now and see that the government is doing something we never imagined could happen.”
