Do you love Putin? The question for the Russians who are leaving

Many of those who have done so have reported unpleasant interrogations – and illegal ones – as they went through passport control in Russia.

“When I left Russia, I was not sure I was doing the right thing,” said Artyom Saprykin, 28, an information technology (IT) specialist from Ufa, the capital of Russia’s Bashkortostan region. “Now, I’m sure,” he added.

On March 15, Saprykin fled President Vladimir Putin’s Russia to Armenia, one of tens of thousands of Russians who have fled their homeland since Ukraine invaded Moscow on February 24.

For example, the Government of Georgia has said that more than 30,000 Russians have arrived there since the war began; Turkey reported that more than 14,000 Russians were displaced there in the first three weeks after fighting began.

“The main reason,” he told Radio Free Europe, “was the realization that Russia has no future. I realized this a long time ago, but I still continued to postpone the decision. “But with the start of the war, I realized that the situation in the country was much worse than I thought.”

Since the Russian occupation of Ukraine on February 24, many Russians who emigrated reported unpleasant experiences while passing passport control to leave the country.

On a separate channel in the Telegram app called Passport Control by the Russian Federation 2022dozens of passengers report being subjected to lengthy interrogation.

Many had to unlock their phones and computers and watch as Federal Security Service (FSB) operatives read their personal messages.

“I knew from my friends what awaited me when I left,” said Saprykin.

“They have already experienced a complete shock.”

Saprykin said it was prepared in advance – buying a return ticket, encrypting some data, deleting as much as possible.

“In short, I made sure they could not ask anything,” he said.

“As a joke, I left the application for [platformën ruse të mediave sociale] “Odnoklassniki on the phone and I filled it with instructions to make sauerkraut and make repairs at home,” he said.

As soon as the border guards learned that Saprykin was an information technology (IT) specialist, he withdrew from the line for questioning.

“Do you love Putin, do you?”

After his phone was searched, he said the agent asked him for his opinion on the war in Ukraine.

The agent’s last question, however, caught Sapryk careless.

“That vampire looks me in the eye with a puppy look and says, ‘But you love Putin, don’t you?’ “, Remembers Saprykin.

“I had prepared the other questions, but I did not expect this. I said, “I do not love anyone. Neither my mother nor my grandmother… I am a misanthrope. This is how I was born and there is nothing I can do about it. “, There were no more questions,” he says.

Saprykin was then ordered to empty his bag on the table. The agent gathered everything and left the room. For the next 40 minutes, the scariest scenarios came to his mind, says Saprykin. But in the end they let him pass.

Such interrogations and checks are illegal under Russian law, said Alyona Savelyova, a human rights lawyer with the non-governmental organization Russia Behind Bars.

“Having no authority to interrogate people or conduct personal checks – including telephones – agents call them ‘conversations’,” Savelyova explained.

“As if no search had taken place, but you voluntarily showed them the phone. They do not write any report, as if there was no interrogation. “They only asked you about politics, what do you think about the conflict with our neighbors, of course all this is illegal,” she said.

Lawyer Ivan Pavlov, who heads the NGO Department “First Department”, added that border agents also put pressure on passengers with “an unofficial means of blackmail”.

“They can keep you in control of your passports for as long as you miss your flight,” he said.

“Russians these days have real problems with tickets and money. If a person risks losing a ticket that cost him 50,000 rubles [500 dollarë]”Of course he will tell them everything they want to see.”

Forty-seven-year-old Yulia, who asked to be identified only by her name, left Russia for Turkey from Moscow Domodedovo Airport on March 12 with her school-age husband and daughter.

Her husband split up in the passport control queue and failed to get to the other side, Yulia told Radio Free Europe.

She later learned that her husband pulled off the line when he told the agent he worked at a bank.

“He was put in a separate room,” Yulia said.

“There were two men in civilian clothes there. “The first thing they did was pick up his phone and start checking it,” she said.

‘As an eternity’

Like Saprykin, Yulia and her husband had been alerted to the checks and had deleted everything that might be considered suspicious – especially conversations with Yulia’s sister, who lives in the Russian-attacked Ukrainian city of Chernihiv.

“We said a lot of emotional things there [në bisedë] that could take us away forever, ”said Yulia.

The first question Yulia’s husband was asked was why he had deleted all his conversations: “What were you trying to hide?” She quoted Russian officials as saying.

Agents interrogated him for about an hour.

“I think the only thing that saved us was that we had bought round-trip tickets,” said Yulia.

“When he came out with his passport, his hands were shaking,” recalls Julia.

“His face was white as a sheet of paper. I was afraid he would suffer a stroke… Only after he regained control of himself could he tell me what happened. “That hour of interrogation seemed like an eternity,” she said.

She added that when her family left Russia, they did not intend to emigrate forever, but simply “to change their circumstances before I went crazy.”

“But that is how my homeland welcomed us,” she said. “Thank you very much… We had intended to leave to rest, but now, to be honest, I do not even know if it is worth coming back. They have not declared martial law and that is how they treat people. And, what will happen if they impose it? “Will they support people against the wall for the slightest doubt?” She asks.

Ruslan, who requested that his last name not be used, left Moscow for Turkey on March 5th. He told Radio Free Europe that his wife is Ukrainian and her relatives live in Ukraine.

“So how could I feel about this war?” He said.

While he was passing passport control, the Russian agent asked to see their return tickets.

As soon as he admitted that they did not, he and his wife withdrew from the line and were sent to a room for questioning.

After a few questions, they asked to see Ruslan’s phone.

“They watched him for about 10 minutes,” he said.

“They read everything – SMS, browser stories, subscriptions, even the history of my ‘likes’. They were very detailed checks. “I had an unread message from my mother and they read it too.”

Agents asked which organization he belonged to, whether he had donated any money or transferred any funds to Ukraine. They asked about his attitude towards “political events” and how he distinguishes false news from truth.

“I tried to answer briefly and correctly without going into details,” he said. “I knew it was a provocation and they were trying to shock me, to make me lose my self-control,” Ruslan said.

His wife was widely asked about her family in Ukraine and her contacts with them.

“The last question was ridiculous,” Ruslan said. “Have your rights in Russia been violated because of your nationality?” My wife replied: “The woman in front of me with a Russian passport was allowed to pass without any questions, but I have been sitting here with you for half an hour. “You tell me if my rights have been violated.”

After another 20 minutes, the couple was allowed to cross into the waiting area.

“There were a lot of families there with dogs and cats in the cart,” Ruslan said. “It was immediately clear that these people were not flying on vacation for a week,” he said.

“I think the guys who interrogated us also understood that,” he added.

“But they did not have the power to stop us. “They have not received the order yet,” he said.REL

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