Just a personal anecdote from interacting with my relatives yesterday, here in Belarus.

Met with my sister who lives in Lithuania with her husbo and kids. They were stuck there because of covid for a while but Belarus has introduced a visa-free regime for Lithuanians and Latvians recently, for at least a month, so they came over to see ppl for the weekend. They said Lithuania is chock full of Ukraine flags, "Russians are in hiding" (Lithuania is full of Russian speakers and Russia sympathizers) and they were surprised how "calm" Belarus was in that regard.

It's true, there are no Ukraine-flag marches here, and no flash-mobs and such that you see in the media all over the EU, everyone's just going about their day. There was a pro-Russia march the other day in the capitol but it was quite small. My hunch is that maybe 30% here are staunchly pro-Ukraine, 30% pro-Russia and the rest either don't care or don't know what to think, but I'm pulling that out of my ass based on some very disparate research.

Anyway. Sister and kids decided to stay for another week , even though they weren't planning to, because the "calm." Husbo brought a jerry-can to stock up on much cheaper gas. Mind you, both of them are very much pro-Ukraine since they read the western news. It's an informational war after all. Propaganda here in Belarus tells a different story, which is also normal. But I guess it was a devious move by the "last dictator of Europe" to let Latvians and Lithuanians in, visa-free so they can buy much cheaper gas, salt and food and see it's not this insane whatever that they've been told.

On the other hand. I have a distant relative in the depths of Russia, who is very patriotic. Their mum lives here in Belarus, so they come over every summer. They are not coming this year because they think Belarus is about to get bombed. This is not my analysis (but they also have kids, so it's ok to be over cautious), but just goes on to show how fucking complicated this shit is compared to one dimensional insane stories one hears on whichever state's tv.

I'm just a bit tired personally. Sometimes giddy, sometimes doomer, always insane. Love yall XX