Russia left the residents of the border region, which had turned into a battle zone, to their own luck.
This is what a Russian tells Yelle Give itwho has been looking for his parents for almost two months.
Ukraine invaded Russian soil in August and still holds Russian territory, home to 24,000 people.
Anna is a family mother who lives near the territory occupied by Ukraine in the city of Kursk in Russia. interviewed him by phone.
Anna is not the woman’s real name. In Russia, criticizing the authorities can result in severe punishment, even imprisonment. That’s why the woman appears in this story under a pseudonym.
His identity is known to .
Anna’s parents disappeared when Ukraine invaded Russian soil at the beginning of August. They live in Suža district. The district is located only ten kilometers from the Ukrainian border. Now Suža and the surrounding villages are under Ukrainian control.
According to Anna, Suža’s phone and internet connections have been disconnected for several weeks. There is no electricity in the area. The roads are closed.
The transfer of the war to Russian soil is fueling discontent among Western Russians.
Anna is downright shocked. According to him, the Russian authorities lied, and as a result, his parents were trapped in the combat zone.
Mom and Dad disappeared
Anna grew up in the Suža district, but now lives a hundred kilometers away in Kursk. The parents’ detached house is located in Suža.
The last time Anna got in touch with her parents was the day before the invasion of Ukraine at the beginning of August. Then the connections stopped working.
– I don’t know where they are, Anna says.
He hopes that the fighters would have taken his parents away from the battle zone to Russia or Ukraine, but he fears the worst, that is, that the parents have been left behind by the fighting.
On August 6, the Ukrainian Armed Forces attacked the district of Suža. The next day, Russia declared a state of emergency in the region.
On August 9th, Russia announced that it would start an “anti-terrorist operation” near the Ukrainian border. In September, the Russian army said it had started “an operation to destroy an enemy group in Suja”.
When Anna spoke to her parents for the last time, they said they heard gunshots and that the neighbors were leaving.
– My parents took the situation calmly. They assured that in case of emergency they would go to hide in the basement.
Anna followed the information from the local authorities. The message was that there was no danger to civilians.
Later, Anna found out that the authorities had lied: Suža had become a combat zone.
– I made a mistake when I trusted official information. Should have listened to those who escaped from Suja. They told about civilian car shootings and drones.
Anna still follows the information of the Russian authorities, but like many other things, she has also started to follow the Telegram of the Ukrainian armed forces.
The Ukrainian army publishes videos of military operations on social media. Many Russians look for clues about their relatives in videos.
Anna says that Russians are constantly told how they should only follow “reliable sources”.
– But where can you find them? When things go badly, the Russian authorities keep quiet or tell only part of the truth. Russians only get information about the war when the Russian army is doing well, says Anna.
The concerns have fallen on deaf ears
Anna reported her missing parents to the local Red Cross. He has also been to the office of the Russian Human Rights Commissioner. He has been looking for his parents in temporary accommodation centers and spreading missing persons reports in his hometown.
– I received a reply from the Red Cross that my application has arrived. There has been no response from the Human Rights Commissioner’s office, Anna says.
In September, 88 people from Kursk write an open letterin which they expressed their concern for their relatives caught in the middle of the fighting and asked for help from the authorities.
reached two people who signed the letter. They briefly said that they support Putin’s administration, but that they were outraged by how coldly the Russian authorities have treated the people of Suja who were caught in the middle of the fighting and their relatives’ requests for help.
In an open letter, the Russians ask the Russian president Vladimir PutinRussian Commissioner for Human Rights Tatiana MoskalkovaPresident of Ukraine Volodymyr ZelenskyOmbudsman of Ukraine Dmytro Lubinets and the International Red Cross to organize a safe passage for the people of Suja out of the battle zone.
However, Russians’ concerns about their relatives have fallen on deaf ears, and it is speaking out in the region.
According to Anna, one of the Russian MPs reacted to the letter by suggesting that the Ukrainian Red Cross could transport Russian citizens away from the war zone.
– It was, to put it mildly, a peculiar proposal. It didn’t even occur to him that the traumatized people caught in the middle of the fighting might misinterpret the situation and think they were kidnapped by Ukraine.
Putin, on the other hand, has not even seen the letter, comments the spokesperson of the Russian administration Dmitry Peskov to the media.
In Anna’s opinion, Peskov’s answer was arrogant.
Award to the leader who did not organize evacuations
Anna is also disappointed with the local government. Governor of Kursk Alexei Smirnov wrote at the beginning of September, that more than 150,000 people had been moved from the border regions. And a couple of weeks later, the governor announced new evacuations.
Suja was not mentioned among the areas to be evacuated.
Anna tried to contact Suža’s local administration to inquire about the security situation, but the phone lines were closed.
It was quite a surprise for Anna when Suža’s manager Alexander Bogachev was awarded in Kursk in September with the Russian State Medal for strengthening Russian military cooperation and defense.
Anna was shocked.
– Bogachev received an award for evacuations that he did not organize. He didn’t even inform the residents that they urgently need to get out of the way of hostilities.
Bogachev was subjected to a barrage of criticism. He has defended himself later saying that the Russian military did not inform him of the operation that was about to begin.
The coming of winter is worrying
In Anna’s family, already after the start of the full-scale Russian war of aggression in February 2022, it was discussed that it would be good to move the parents further away from the Ukrainian border.
– They didn’t want to move. I understand that they didn’t want to leave the home they had built and lived in for over 40 years. They had a vegetable garden, a pig, chickens and a dog there.
The sadness of the ongoing war weighs on Anna’s mind. He is also worried about how the trapped Suja people will fare when it gets cold.
Russia does not allow volunteers to deliver food and medicine to Suja because it considers it a combat zone.
Anna regrets not taking her parents out of Suža in August.
The trip would have taken an hour by car.