I’ve spoken periodically to Russian model Kira Dikhtyar over the last few months to get her take on what life is like in Moscow at the moment. Hers is a perspective that is all too often missing from U.S. media coverage—that of Russian citizens.
The moment I even began to frame my first question—about what it has been like in Moscow during the war—Dikhtyar immediately stopped me. “I am right now under Russian law,” she reminded me. “We’re not allowed to call it ‘war.’ So let’s call it ‘special military operation.’”