Marina, Italy
Marina has been living in Italy for the past 16 years, but this is the first time she has faced bullying against Russians.
In March, when a woman posted on social media in support of Russia, hundreds of threatening messages from Ukrainians rained down on her.
“First, Ukrainians wrote to me, who themselves have been living in Italy for many years, whom I know, with whom I used to communicate.
They began to distribute links to my social networks everywhere in their chats, and then threats came to me from there, ”says the interlocutor of RT.
Marina turned to the police in Naples, where she lives, on March 5 - on this day she received a message with a wish for death and threats from the son of her neighbor from western Ukraine.
The woman feared for her safety.
“Threats were sent by a young man who wrote that he knew where I lived, that they would find me and kill me.
I wrote a statement because I know this guy's mother, she lives near me, and they really know where my house is.
It is no longer just threats on the Internet.
They wrote to me: “We know where you live, we will come for you, we will take you away, we will kill you, they will not find your body, we will take you out of the city,” the woman recalls.
According to her, the first three statements to the police did not lead to anything.
Law enforcement agencies drew attention to the problem only when the attackers put up leaflets with photographs of Marina and another woman in the center of Naples.
The photo captions contained obscene inscriptions calling for violence against Russian women.
“Another woman got on the posters.
She is Ossetian and has not lived in Italy for the last seven years.
It is not clear why her photo was pasted around Naples, the Russian woman is perplexed.
“On the posters with photographs there are inscriptions in Italian in the spirit of “piece of shit, daughter of a pedophile, murderers, murderers of children and women, if you meet her on the street, spit in her face” and so on.”
Marina herself did not know anything about the leaflets until the Italians began to write to her, who saw the posters and were indignant at their content.
They tracked down her page in social networks by photo, began to offer help, including the services of lawyers.
At the same time, the local police finally drew attention to the situation - now they received statements from Italians who saw leaflets on the streets.
“The lawyer who undertook to help me contacted our consulate.
He says that now it will be a criminal case and a high-profile lawsuit,” the woman explains.
Marina wants to get the people who threatened her punished.
What worries her most is that the attackers found the social media accounts of her daughter and two-year-old granddaughter, who live in Russia.
The woman was threatened that they would be found and killed.
According to Marina, now the problem of bullying against Russians is acute in many European countries.
She urged citizens of the Russian Federation who are faced with this to immediately contact law enforcement agencies and the consulate.
Oksana, Greece
Oksana is a historian and guide in Athens, she graduated from a university in Greece and has been living here for 20 years.
On April 24, a group of Ukrainians brutally beat a woman and two of her comrades on the beach of Agios Kosmas in Athens.
On that day, Oksana was resting with a company on the coast, they celebrated Easter.
A company of Ukrainians was located nearby - according to Oksana, there were about 30 of them.
When Oksana’s company, which consisted mainly of Russians, had already begun to disperse, and only three people remained on the beach, a group of Ukrainians began to shout in their direction: “Glory to Ukraine!”
After one of Oksana's companions shouted back: "Glory to Russia!", a crowd of 10-12 people attacked them.
“I knew some of those who attacked us.
When our guys were already slaughtered, I shouted at them, tried to stop them, but in the end I myself got hit in the head, Oksana recalls.
“At some point, all three of us were on the ground, then they kicked us with their feet.”
“Passers-by, other companies ran up, tried to drag those who beat us.
I lost consciousness, my head was pierced.
My blood was everywhere: all my hair was in the blood, all my clothes right through to my underpants - I was all in blood.
When they (the attackers. -
RT
) saw this, they apparently got scared, and the fight stopped a little, ”the woman says.
When Oksana was brought to her senses, she called the police, and some passers-by who witnessed the attack did the same.
On the same day, the victim wrote a statement to the police and underwent a forensic examination to record her injuries.
“Now I feel better, but I have a broken head, a scar on my face and a large hematoma under and above my eye.
In general, the picture is cheerful, ”the RT interlocutor sighs.
© Photo from the personal archive
The Russian woman noted that almost immediately after the incident, employees of the Russian consulate in Greece contacted her.
She was offered assistance and assured that they would follow the progress of the process.
The diplomatic mission confirmed to RT that they were monitoring the situation and offered Oksana support when they learned about what had happened.
“Employees of the consular department proactively contacted the victim, offered assistance, advised her on legal issues.
The girl said that she had filed a complaint with the police, an experienced lawyer was working with her.
I did not express any requests,” the consulate said.
Russian diplomats in Greece added that the embassy periodically receives reports of provocations, verbal abuse and physical attacks by Ukrainians on Russian citizens, compatriots living in Greece and Russian speakers.
“It is impossible to verify the accuracy of such information due to the fact that they come from third parties, without video or photo recording, do not contain data on the names of the victims, the scene of the incident, and so on,” the consulate notes.
They called on all Russians who suffered abroad from aggression by Ukrainians to immediately report the incident to the local police.
Other victims
Information about new cases of aggression against Russians and Russian speakers in recent months has been regularly received from European countries.
Often it comes to appeals to the police and the courts.
So, on April 8, in Spanish Malaga, a Russian woman with a child in a stroller was attacked by a citizen of Ukraine.
The victim posted a video of the persecution on her social networks and contacted law enforcement agencies.
On April 23, Russian actress Agniya Mishchenko-Brodskaya, who lives in Italy, said on social networks that she was attacked by refugees from Ukraine.
According to her, the reason for the beating was that she was a “Russian Jewess”.
The woman also wrote a statement to the police.
At the end of March, the Dutch police received a statement from a Russian woman who announced that her six-year-old son had been beaten.
According to the victim, the attackers shouted "Glory to Ukraine!"
Anna, a Russian woman living in the Netherlands, told Life about the incident.
The woman added that such acts of aggression occur regularly, and Russian-speaking residents of European countries do not know how to protect themselves and their children from attacks.