Reportage
Ukrainian refugees: the long and difficult Russian journey to reach Europe
A family in a bomb-ravaged street in Mariupol in early April 2022. AFP - ALEXANDER NEMENOV
Text by: Marc Etcheverry Follow
16 mins
New images of queues from the Russian-Estonian border remind us that a large number of Ukrainian refugees are in Russia.
Many against their will.
Those who wish to return to Europe, notably
via
the Baltic countries, can count on volunteer organizations, forced to act in the shadows.
Testimonials.
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“
The 24th?
On the morning of February 24, I got ready to go to work.
My son was with a friend.
He came running and shouted
"Mom, the war has begun"
.
I do not believe it...
Sitting in the middle of a cramped room cluttered with donations to Ukraine, Svitlana searches for the words to say the unspeakable.
In Narva, on the Russian-Estonian border, she is now far from the war, but her spirit is still there.
She holds the hand of Anastasia Ludvig, also Ukrainian, a local volunteer who has become her friend, and tries to reassemble the memories of a painful departure.
Last April, Svitlana left behind her city of Mariupol under a carpet of bombs, to undertake a journey of 2,500 km.
A journey to take shelter that she would never have imagined when the first cannon shots rang out.
And that many others have undertaken with her.
How many of these refugees are forced - deliberately or because of the fighting - to go to Russia and who have managed to reach the European Union?
How many still want it?
“
Between February 24 and October 2, around 300,700 entries of people of Ukrainian nationality, via Russia and Belarus, were detected in the EU and the countries associated with the Schengen area
”, answers the European Commission. , questioned by RFI, to the first question.
The answer to the second is obviously more complex to formulate.
Officially, Russia currently has almost
2.8 million Ukrainian refugees.
on his floor.
It is the first “host” country.
Populations who fled as the Russian army advanced, particularly in the Donbass and the regions of Mariupol and Kherson, in the South.
Some went there willingly: Russophiles, having family in Russia, or completely adhering to the ideological line of the Kremlin, Putin's country appeared to them as a natural destination, despite the heartbreak of their departure.
Many others were forced to go in that direction: often by bus, these Ukrainians had no choice but to cross into “enemy” territory.
"Forced transfers" of men, women and children, documented and denounced by numerous NGOs, including Human Rights Watch, but also by
the UN
.
Among these, some do not envisage a new start, while others undertake it.
This early October, again, the Estonian media reported long queues at the
Russian border
.
Estonia, through its welcoming policy and its proximity to the road and rail hub that is the agglomeration of Saint Petersburg, has been a favored destination for many refugees since the start of the war.
According to Tallinn, nearly 100,000 of them arrived in the country
via
Russia.
For many, through the Narva border post.
“
There was a period when there were nearly 500 a day
,” says Aleksandra Averjanova, a member of the small local NGO
Friends of Mariupol
.
They come from eastern Ukraine, from Melitopol, Kharkiv or even Kherson.
Many were in Mariupol when the city was besieged by Russian forces.
They holed up for weeks before making up their minds
.
»
Opposite the Estonian border post of Narva, the city of Ivangorod, the last stop before entering the territory of the European Union.
© RFI / Marc Etcheverry
On the wrong side of the forehead
This was the case of Svitlana.
"
As of March 2, it was impossible to leave
," she says.
People were running and trying to drive out of town, but there were no humanitarian corridors then.
People were taking a big risk.
We didn't have our own vehicle, no bus, and besides, we had nowhere to go.
The bombardment of our city was so violent that we could not leave our apartment.
From 5
March, we had no more gas and we were cooking outside, at the risk of our lives, and at the end of the month, the situation was no longer tenable: we could no longer stay at home, because the windows had been shattered , and in the street, the corpses were piling up.
We had to bury them quickly before the dogs ate them...
"
At the beginning of April, when the siege of the Azovstal factory began, she finally left the city with her son and husband, in the company of a neighbor who had a car.
But they are on the wrong side of the front.
Within a few hundred meters, they would have known the fate of many refugees, first conveyed to Zaporijjia, in the northwest, before reaching the big cities of the North and West, such as kyiv and Lviv.
But the violence of the fighting leaves them no choice: driving in territory under Russian control, they must head towards the eastern border to escape the war.
Could they have forced fate and tried to move further into territory under Ukrainian control?
Risky, even impossible.
In the
latest report
by Human Rights Watch, devoted to the forced displacement of Ukrainians, the numerous testimonies collected leave little room for doubt: in addition to the threat of bombing, Russian and pro-Russian forces dissuade civilians who want to "move from 'other side ".
And for those who only have their legs to flee, the buses made available have only one destination: Russia.
It is neither more nor less than “
deportations
” for Westerners and Ukrainians.
Moscow, for its part, always argues that it is a question
of "
Alexander, also met in Narva, was on the wrong side of the front from the start, in 2014, when after Crimea, Russian forces supported the uprising of pro-Kremlin rebels in Donbass.
Having to move around with a crutch, this septuagenarian had come to terms, over the years, with this situation, with this
de facto division
of the country.
He remained in separatist territory, but would receive his retirement pension in territory under Ukrainian control.
So when the invasion started last February, he was already near the Russian border, not far from Donetsk.
“
We took a taxi.
The driver gave our papers, they checked them, and we continued on our way to Russia..
.
His advanced age allowed him to pass an obstacle that many others had to face, the filtration camp.
Separating the “good” from the “bad” refugee
The first decisive moment, for the refugees transferred to Russia, is in the Ukrainian territories under Russian control, in the self-proclaimed republics of Donetsk and Lugansk, now completely annexed to the Federation.
In these areas, still disputed, the Kremlin has set up at least fifteen camps to "filter" the flow of displaced people.
Objective: to sort out "good" and "bad" refugees, and avoid the infiltration of fighters or spies in the pay of kyiv on its soil.
"
Many are stripped bare, and are questioned at length
," explains Aleksandra Averjanova, of Friends of Mariupol, who was able to collect many similar testimonies on these camps.
Men are particularly inspected: “
We look at their tattoos and if they have any marks on their body, showing that they used a weapon
.
The telephones are also confiscated: files and messages are checked there, in search of sympathy displayed towards the Ukrainian power.
Interrogations can last for hours or even days.
"
For me, the screening process was quick, because as a woman, I wasn't very interested in them
," recalls Svitlana.
Unlike my husband, and especially my 23-year-old son
.
[...]
We had to give our passports, our phones, they checked everything.
We had to justify what they found, explain why we wrote this, why we answered that.
At the start of the war, my husband sent me a message in which he said that it was Putin
"who started this whole circus".
At the filtration camp, they didn't like it..
.
Once at the border, you have to start all over again.
Like the others, they had to submit to new interrogations.
“
My men were held from 6:30 a.m. to 4 p.m.
We thought we wouldn't make it, that they would never let us out.
»
And for good reason, the most terrifying rumors were already circulating among the populations fleeing the fighting.
Stories of people beaten, tortured, never seen again.
Stories nevertheless completely credible, according to the UN High Commissioner, which last May, in
a report
, pointed to verbal abuse, humiliation and sexual violence committed in these centers.
While Svitlana's "
men
" eventually went through this process without a hitch, some were sent to detention, where cases of torture were substantiated.
“
People awaiting filtration often spend the night in unequipped vehicles or premises, sometimes without adequate access to food, water and sanitation.
”, noted the United Nations mission that drafted the document.
Svitlana route through Ukraine and Russia.
© FMM graphic studio / Marc Etcheverry
The Other Russian World
For many, despite the ordeal overcome, the arrival in Russia is not a relief.
Few have a clear idea of their final destination.
In the absence of prospects, many allow themselves to be taken to “temporary placement centres”.
These refugee camps - in fact former recreation areas, schools or refurbished hospitals - are scattered throughout the territory of the Federation, to the farthest reaches of the Far East.
The first appear as soon as they cross the border, notably in Taganrog, a Russian seaside resort located just a hundred kilometers from Mariupol.
It is here, for example, that Alexander, the septuagenarian from Donetsk, landed with his wife after their "
shelter
".
Since the beginning of the conflict, the Russian televisions multiply the subjects on these places of reception, praising their comfort, although relatively basic.
In fact, the testimonies collected by Human Rights Watch or RFI do not prove them wrong.
But the people who are there remain lonely, disoriented, extremely vulnerable...
For some, returning to Europe is a prospect he cherished from the moment they left.
For others, this destination becomes more obvious once in Russia.
But for all of them, the road is long, and the information quickly runs out.
The border crossed, Svitlana and her family took the direction of Rostov-on-the-Don.
They avoided the “refugee camp” box and opted for the hotel, because they could afford it, unlike many comrades in misfortune.
“
We rented a room and stayed quiet, so as not to attract attention.
We weren't walking, nothing
“, she remembers.
Alexandre has landed in an informational desert.
In Taganrog, not mastering new technologies, he quickly ran out of information on the rest of his journey.
Fortunately, his son supervised everything from Germany, where he resides.
Who are they, then, these Ukrainians landing in a country they want to leave at all costs?
"
He doesn't really have a typical profile
," says Rita Vinokur, head of the NGO Rubikus, registered in Germany and involved in helping refugees since the start of the conflict.
Unlike those fleeing the war on the Ukrainian side, there are more men, because in the West, they are not allowed to pass
[they have been enrolled in the army since the announcement of the
general mobilization
by the President Zelensky, Editor's note].
There are whole families, but also many injured people, sometimes seriously: a woman who lost her baby during a bombardment, people who hide for a long time without receiving care, for example.
While medical convoys have sprung up on the Ukrainian side, in areas under Russian control, that's another matter.
“
We had the case of a paraplegic Ukrainian who had to be transported.
He couldn't move a finger, and he was very tall, almost two meters
.
They had to pull him on a train, because no one was able to transport him properly from Mariupol to Russia.
Then they had to use a blanket to put him on a bus.
He was traveling with his mother and his teenage sister.
[…]
Severe medical cases like this, we meet several every week
, ”says Rita Vinokur.
The Shadow Volunteers
To help his parents leave Russian territory, the son of Alexander was able to rely, in Russia, on a network of citizens who, moved by the fate reserved for these exiles, try to help those who want to leave. West.
A network, or rather networks, organized in Telegram conversations - the popular encrypted messaging of Russian youth - without a name, without legal existence.
The NGO Rubikus knows them well.
If it helps to inform the refugees when they leave Ukraine, and when they enter European territory, it relies on these Russian volunteers to organize the journey inside the country of Vladimir Putin.
Another scenario: the refugees, already on Russian soil, come into contact with volunteers, who then take the initiative to warn Rubikus of the imminent arrival,
Example of a call for donations (translated from Russian) to enable a Ukrainian family to travel to Poland.
© Telegram / Friends of Mariupol
“
Many
[of these volunteers]
are in their thirties or forties.
They have savings, own cars, are internet savvy with a good connection.
There are more women than men.
Rather educated people, who travel
, ”continues Rita Vinokur.
But there are also younger Russians, like students, and older ones.
“
We often talk about the brainwashing of senior citizens in Russia, but there are smart people at all ages
.
»
The actions of these committed citizens, who would be several thousands, are multiple: they can provide information on the nearest hotels, buy bus or train tickets, transport refugees from one point to another, or stay with them, for a welcome stopover.
Their names never appear in conversations with the people they help, and few venture to speak to the media.
Oleg Tkachuk, 48, is one of them.
He arrived in Finland on September 28, where he has just applied for asylum.
From April to the end of the summer, he coordinated the travel of many refugees from his city of Saint Petersburg.
"
I told them which road to take, where the gas stations were, which sectors to avoid...
" There is nothing pyramidal about the networks of Russian volunteers, everything works in silos, depending on the requests of the refugees and the sectors of passage .
A pledge, too, of security.
"
Each one brings their know-how and their means: some have computer knowledge, others have a car...
" At the beginning, "
it was
very 'artisanal'", explains Oleg to RFI.
People took turns 24 hours a day to receive the first messages, those in which people indicate their location and where they want to go.
Then we set up robots in our various Telegram channels, capable of dispatching requests to the right people, in the right conversations
.
»
A form of “professionalization” which is not to the liking of the authorities.
“
They let Ukrainians help as long as you are not too visible on social networks, that you are not trying to raise large sums of money
”, confirms the boss of Rubikus.
When he needs money to help a family, Oleg often goes through his circle of acquaintances to raise just the amount needed.
Appearing on the radar of the police or intelligence services is never a good omen.
If Oleg seeks asylum in Finland, it is because he had to attend an FSB summons during which he was clearly told that he would be prosecuted "
if he came to the aid of enemies of the State
".
One of his comrades was placed in detention, and the independent Russian press has already echoed physical violence against volunteers, especially when they tried to approach the transit camps.
No return date
The very recent images of refugees massed at the gates of Estonia remind us that the Russian routes of exile are still active, despite the current ascendancy of Ukrainian forces on the battlefield.
And right down to the last mile, they can be grueling.
In Ivangorod, the last town in Russia before arriving in Narva, Svitlana's men had to submit to a final interrogation, yet another check of their cell phones.
Still hours of waiting before crossing the border.
Less than a third of Ukrainians arriving under these conditions remain in the Baltic country.
The vast majority continue their journey in Europe, to Germany, Finland or Ireland.
But very often, an Estonian break is necessary, for the bodies, but also the spirits.
“
There are two types of refugees who arrive in Narva
,” explains Polina, a Ukrainian from Donetsk who arrived before the war and who runs an information point at the exit from the border post.
There are those who have spent weeks or even months in Russia and have had time to adapt to a new situation.
And there are those who come directly from Ukraine at war, and who are often isolated, tried and particularly confused.
All need psychological help,
.
»
Alexandre and his wife, after a little rest, will join their son in Germany.
Svitlana is determined to return to Mariupol once the city is retaken by Ukrainian forces.
“
We will return to Ukraine, there is no doubt.
Although here we are all safe, with a job, that we have found calm, we remain strangers
...”
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