Who murders kids with cancer?

All words seem too shallow to describe my feelings toward Russia.

The aftermath of Russia’s attack on Okhmatdyt in Kyiv. Photo by Ukraine’s DSNS, July 8.

Today, in the early Monday hours, Russia launched a massive missile attack on multiple Ukrainian cities. This wasn’t a shocking event. Ukraine gets these kinds of attacks every now and then, absorbing varying degrees of damage.

Dnipro, Kramatorsk, Kryvyi Rih, Sloviansk, and Pokrovsk all suffered that morning, but it was my hometown Kyiv that stood out this time.

Apart from hitting an inactive military factory, a residential building and some energy infrastructure, the Russians also hit Ukraine’s largest children’s hospital Okhmatdyt. This wasn’t a horrifying accident. It was a direct, targeted hit by a cruise missile, and its impact moment was captured on video.

The bombed hospital department specialized in treating kids with cancer, and many families were there for their chemo sessions or surgeries this morning. Many of them took shelter and survived. Still, 2 people died and 16 have been heavily injured from the hospital attack, and there still might be people under the rubble.

Looking at the images of frightened kids without hair, I have a question:

What kind of force produces a high-tech cruise missile worth 14 million dollars in order to launch it from an airplane and hit a target 1,200 kilometers away: a hospital specialized in treating kids with cancer?

This wasn’t the result of a random splash of violence or a horrible coincidence.

Attacking a kids’ cancer hospital was a meticulously planned, industrially produced, societally enabled act. It was executed by tens of thousands of Russian people working in military plants, doing the logistics, applying complex tech and pushing the launch buttons. It involved millions more Russians approving of or tolerating the kind of leadership that planned this attack.

The only word I can come up with to explain the system that unleashed this and many other acts of violence on Ukrainians is genocide. No other term can do the job.

Now, how do I feel about this system?

I don’t hate Russia. I mean, I keep saying that I hate it – but I think “hate” is the wrong word to describe my feelings. “Hate” is a generalized, hot-headed word. People usually hate things they fear and don’t fully understand.

I, on the other hand, understand Russia. I know the Russian language and have followed their TV and social media discourse for the last 20 years. I’ve read, seen, and heard Russian people talk about Ukrainians, Georgians, Estonians, and Poles too many times – long before 2022, or 2014. I know exactly what Russia will do to my family, friends and compatriots if it occupies Kyiv – because Russia has left plenty of evidence from the de-occupied places in Ukraine.

Whatever I feel toward Russia, it is too cold-blooded and overinformed to be called “hate.”

Anger? Disrespect? Vengefulness? Disgust? I don’t know.

There has to be a word – or a mix of them – that describes this feeling, but I’m yet to find it. I just hope someday the beast will start eating itself and not other people.

In the meantime, I donated to Okhmatdyt. You are welcome to join.