We just made a donation of $1533 to Save The Children with the profits made from the military vehicles reference set released last week, thank you everyone who contributed, and if you still haven’t grabbed it yet all profits are still going to Save the children. The second donation will take place later this month.
Product link - https://www.artstation.com/a/13897531
Many of my Russian customers and fellow devs have reached out to me the last couple of days regarding this donation and although we have managed to have some interesting and respectful debates, I don’t think any amount of talking or links thrown around will change either of our stance on this matter. So as I don’t want to waste more of your or my own time I’m no longer engaging with emails regarding this subject, I’ll leave you with my closing statement on the matter below.
Having lived a big part of my life in a country where most of its recent history has been angled to victimize itself, and where a majority of its people can’t consume information in anything other than their own language. I have experienced first hand how strong peoples belief of being right can be even when the information those feelings are based on are easily proven false. No matter where you live you will always encounter information that is skewed towards a specific purpose, be it true or not. To some degree we all have strong opinions and beliefs born from such information. From my experience, always try to look at the bigger picture and the motive of the people behind it rather than the half truths and details that they try to feed you. Just as the US war on Iraq was mainly based on emotions rather than any proof of weapons of mass destruction, the Russian invasion of Ukraine is not based on Putin's sudden care for minorities or his need to denazify a nation that has ironically elected a Jewish president. Keep in mind that although you as Russians might feel unjustly vilified, the average person knows that a government and its people are not one of the same and won’t judge you personally based on what your leaders do, especially when those leaders haven’t been democratically elected.
No matter how big our differences might be, I think we can all agree that the children of Ukraine are not to blame and deserve our help, which is what this money is going towards.