To be with/an enemy in the field

This article presents my autoethnographic reflection on my experience as a Ukrainian ethnologist participating in a project researching Russian anti‐war activism. I reflect on a number of moral and ethical issues, as well as my own prejudices that arose while conducting research and recording interviews with Russian migrants, in particular the initial absence of empathy both them and myself. Building on this experience, I describe how war‐time trauma, linguistic aversion, and personal loss shaped my reactions in the field and complicated my ability to engage with Russian activists as individuals rather than as metonymic representatives of an aggressor state. The article traces my gradual shift from emotional resistance to cautious openness, showing how encounters with exiled activists challenged my assumptions and exposed the fragile conditions under which empathy becomes possible. Ultimately, I argue, war unsettles the foundations of ethnographic attention and forces the researcher to renegotiate the boundaries of listening and coexistence.