- A Russian model said his mother dumped him after he criticized Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
- Jean-Michel Scherbak, 30, posted about the war on his Instagram account.
- “You’re not my son anymore,” he said, his mother told him. “There will be no traitors in my family.”
Loading Something is loading.
A Russian model and actor said his standing up for Ukraine cost him his relationship with his mother, in another heartbreaking example of how Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war has torn families and friends apart.
Jean-Michel Scherbak, 30, began posting about the conflict almost immediately after Russia invaded Ukraine in late February, sharing videos and news with his tens of thousands of Instagram followers.
But his educational endeavors did not sit well with his Russian mother, a longtime and ardent Putin supporter, Scherbak told CNN this week. His mother promptly blocked him after he wrote on social media that he was ashamed of his country for starting a war.
“She wrote to me on Facebook that I’m a traitor and that I made my choice,” Scherbak told Reuters last month.
Scherbak, who told CNN that he has several friends in Ukraine and has visited the country several times, said he was inspired to start the post about the war because he couldn’t believe such brutality could happen in modern times be possible.
He began sharing stories of local Ukrainians on his Instagram account, contrasting their lived experiences with the lies of the Russian state.
“People who live far from the big cities turn on their televisions and only see propaganda news,” Scherbak said of Russia’s powerful propaganda machine. “And they believe official media more than independent media.”
Scherbak eventually decided to leave Moscow and spoke to CNN from Germany. But before leaving home, he said he made one last attempt to reconcile with his mother.
In a March 1 Instagram post, Scherbak said he sent his mother some money and a letter telling her he held no grudges against her. Her answer came quickly.
“Don’t send anything, I’ll just send it back. I do not communicate with Russophobes and traitors to the Motherland,” she wrote on Scherbak’s Instagram, according to pictures. “I sincerely wish you would give up your Russian passport and leave this country in any direction.”
“You’re not my son anymore,” she added. “There will be no traitors in my family.”
Despite cutting off communications, Scherbak spoke directly to his mother in the Instagram post, telling her he would never treat his children the way she treated him, but adding that she could still contact him if she did ever want to speak again.
Scherbak’s experience with his mother is becoming increasingly familiar to many people in Ukraine and Russia, who have found their loved ones reluctant to believe the truth about what is happening across Ukraine. Insider’s Mia Jankowicz spoke to several Ukrainians last month about the difficulties they’ve had in convincing their Russian relatives and friends that the Russian invasion was unprovoked.
A woman living in eastern Ukraine told Insider that she felt the war had “orphaned” her after her father, a Russian veteran, refused to listen.
“I started talking about the horror that’s happening in Ukraine,” she told Insider. “He said it was a lie. That they save us.”