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Since the start of Russian aggression in Ukraine, nearly two million Ukrainian refugees have been resettled in Russia, according to Ukrainian and Russian officials. Ukraine accuses the Kremlin of forcibly relocating Ukrainians, an action they consider a war crime.
But Russia says the evacuations are humanitarian in nature. The following material tells the saga of Ukrainian refugees trying to leave Russia.
Groups of Ukrainians gather near a bridge over the Narva River in northwestern Russia on the border with Estonia. Every day buses bring people who want to go to the European Union country.
After the Russian aggression in Ukraine, the occupying forces relocated them to Russia, thousands of kilometers away from their homes. Through persistence, luck and an invisible network of Russian volunteers, some of the Ukrainian refugees are leaving Russia for a new life in Europe.
Marina Nosylenko, one of the refugees, says the children feel traumatized.
“We are trying to focus our attention elsewhere now, because it is affecting the mental state of the children. We try to maintain positivity, as if nothing has happened, as if everything is fine and we have just changed houses.”
An investigation by the Associated Press news agency, based on dozens of interviews, has found that many Ukrainian refugees have been forcibly relocated to Russia by occupying troops. They have been subjected to abuses, confiscation of documents and do not know what awaits them and where they may end up. A choice between death in Ukraine or life in Russia.
“Five armed men surrounded me and told me that I had no choice and that it was determined where I would go. I told him that we have the right to know where they are taking us,” says Ukrainian refugee Viktoria Kovalevska.
At the detention center she convinced a Russian driver to hide her family on the bus. Then in Rostov, a network of Russian volunteers helped her family leave for Estonia.
Since the beginning of April, about 2,000 Ukrainian refugees, many of them from Mariupol, have been placed on the ferry “MS Isabelle” docked in Tallinn, based on an agreement with the Estonian authorities. Russian control on the border with Estonia is very strict, refugees say.
“It’s a filtering process. They ask you if you have any connection with the Ukrainian army and what you think about the so-called special operation. To take fingerprints. It is a process repeated several times in Russia”.
Those who “pass” Russian filtering are invited to stay and are often promised a sum of money, which they may or may not receive. In some cases, Ukrainian passports are taken from them and they are offered the option of Russian citizenship. But there are also cases when refugees are pressured to sign documents that incriminate the Ukrainian government and army.
The Associated Press news agency has verified that many Ukrainians have taken temporary refuge in Russia, in some cases many of them in areas some 10,000 kilometers away, near Russia’s border with China.
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