I am a Ukrainian Jew. I have lost my mother to Russian disinformation – J.

LTC Eugene Chu
"My mother has been brainwashed by Russian propaganda.

Aside from a brief phone call during the first week of the war, I haven’t been communicating with her. It’s too painful to expend energy on reasoning with her while my people are getting killed at the front lines. I choose to spend that time and energy caring for people who need it, like the three elderly families in my building. I am at peace with my decision, but losing my mother to Russian propaganda breaks my heart.

I’m a Ukrainian Jew who was born and raised in Kyiv, and at 30 years old, I’m just slightly younger than the free nation of Ukraine. I have lived abroad in China, Germany, and Israel, and have worked in the corporate world and in Jewish education. I have had opportunities to develop myself and see what the world has to offer. My mother, in contrast, grew up in the Soviet Union. She was able to be brainwashed into thinking that the Ukrainian military is exterminating its own citizens. I was born in freedom, and I am able to see the truth.

I am always critical of everything I see and experience. I understand that when I watch television, for example, I am being invited to share in a reality that was created by someone else. But my mom, who grew up in the Soviet Union, was forced to experience the reality that the Soviet Union created.

I regularly commiserate with my older siblings, but it’s very hard for us to grapple with the truth that my mother is lost to Russian disinformation. This war and the Russian propaganda is dividing countless families just like ours.

My mother liked the Soviet Union, and the utopian ideals it convinced her were a reality. It was a world in which everything was straightforward, and there was no room for any criticism.

She worked at a shoe factory, where she earned a pretty high salary, and her life was pretty good. She had nothing to complain about.

When the Soviet Union fell, everybody was forced to think for themselves for the first time, and my mother was not ready. She was not equipped with the proper skills to survive in this new world Ukraine was creating. She was lost, and I understand how she became an easy target for Russian propaganda extolling Soviet values, Soviet culture, the myth of how it was cool and great during the Soviet times."...

LTC Eugene Chu German Progroms, Russian Progroms, Both have been Horrendous towards Jews. Russian Progroms Appear to still be a Problem.

I watched CBS news last night, they did a piece on Russia, it was funny how the Russian information minister claimed the west media was not reporting the truth and how the Russian media was actually reporting the unbiased truth to the Russian people.