Maria Lazebnaya, a trained doctor in Moscow, has already lost her job because she speaks out loud about where she stands.
"Maybe I'm naïve, but I don't think the regime is terrifying. It consists of old, stupid and aggressive old men who have become like a parody of horror," she says.
Terrified of speaking out
When SVT is looking for those who are against the war, several agree to an interview on one condition – if they can remain anonymous. Natalia, whose real name is something else, is one of them.
"Without a doubt, I am afraid of reprisals and I am afraid of this state. It came with mother's milk. My mother-in-law is still afraid of everything. She has Stalin's portrait on the fridge and I think she hung it up because of the fear," she says.
"A feeling of sadness"
On February 24, 2022, Nataliya started taking antidepressants. To this day, she can't do without them.
"I live with a feeling of sadness all the time. As if I had just lost a person close to me. But when you lose someone, that feeling slowly disappears. Now it continues every day, from the first day of the war.
In order to manage her life, Nataliya has stopped talking to several of her friends. But a contact has been difficult to break. Her husband, to whom she has been married for 25 years, is not on the same side as herself.
"He is against the war and is in shock since last year, but at the same time he cannot believe what happened in Butja and he refuses to believe that so many people have died. So we try to avoid this topic and if we accidentally touch it, it leads to screams and horrible scenes," she says.
See no future
Natalia describes the 90s, when the Soviet Union collapsed, as the happiest time of her life. She could start traveling and discovering Europe. Today she lives with the feeling that the clock has been turned back. At the same time, she neither can nor wants to leave Russia and her dream job as a doctor.
"Russia is my homeland. Here my ancestors have lived, here I have my friends and here I have a home that I have built.