February 2017: Avdiivka, Donetsk oblast. CC BY-SA 2.0 Rebecca Harms / Flickr. Some rights reserved.
An Italian journalist once asked me why I love my country. He also asked me whether I consider myself Ukrainian. After all, I was born in the Donbas, and I speak mostly Russian in my everyday life. But just because my home is now a war zone and my mother tongue is Russian doesn’t make me any less a citizen of Ukraine, or infringe my ability to relate to my country with respect, love and healthy criticism.
