War in the First Person

Imagine being a Ukrainian family forced to host Russian soldiers. What would you do and say to them?

"The Horbonoses’ home, a house they had been building for 30 years, was completely destroyed; their library burned for two days before collapsing into rubble. When Irina couldn’t take it anymore, she would begin to cry and scream at the soldiers in the darkness of the cellar: “We had everything! What are you doing here?” The Russians would only sit in the dark, silent.

"One morning, she took them with her to gather wild herbs for tea. As they walked through what little was left of the Horbonoses’ lives, the soldiers apologized for all the destruction they had brought. It would be so much better, one said, if they could someday visit as guests. Sergey was livid. “You’ve come here to kill me and destroy my home,” he said, “and we are meant to be friends? We can only be enemies.” The Russians again apologized, and soon all of them began to say that the war was senseless. They even began calling it a war."

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/05/putin-war-propaganda-russian-support/629714/