The drama of the Donbas evacuees: “I don’t want to be Russian anymore”


  • The war opens an identity crack in the Russian-speaking population of eastern Ukraine

Above the sky of the evacuation center of Voloske a fight is taking place. In a bucolic landscape, a fighter plane sniffs around. But the noise that its passage has produced has not moved practically anyone. Those who are here come from worst hells. They have had to flee their homes, where the war has made living a chimera. Most of them are simple people from rural areas in the regions of Donetsk and Luhanskwhere now the battle of donbas; regions historically linked to Russia and Russophones, in which the population shares mothers, husbands, brothers and children spread across both countries. Thus the crack, caused by the conflict, hurts in the bowels.

In some towns, a large part of the residents have fled. They have run away, as the bombs have begun to fall closer. Sergei, a 72-year-old from a tiny village of 400 souls called Zelenoe Pole, in the Donetsk district, is one of them. “It is very difficult to explain in words how I feel & rdquor ;, he says, his voice breaking with nerves when he is asked what is going on. “A few days ago they started bomb the town and that is why they evacuated us & rdquor ;, he says, adding that, in his opinion, the situation can be explained with simple words. “Russia attacks and Ukraine is defending itself & rdquor ;, he opines.

flee to survive

But if Sergei fled to Voloske, this is not the case for his family. “My wife and all my children have been in Siberia, in Russia, since 2014 (when the conflict first started in the Donetsk and Lugansk regions) & rdquor ;, she says. “Of course I talk to them. They told me I have to run away and find another place to live & rdquor ;, he continues.

Svitlana, who is 53 years old and is from Milutvaka, still smiles from time to time, but has no words of forgiveness. “I never thought that (Russian President Vladimir) Putin would be so crazy. First They destroyed my house and now my mother’s & rdquor ; says this woman who once worked as a hairdresser and employee of an electric company. “That’s why, even though my passport says I’m Russian, now i want to be ukrainian& rdquor ;, she affirms, adding that she believes that the Russians “do not understand what is happening, they do not understand anything & rdquor ;. “Some say that there are nationalists here, Banderas (after Stepan, a Nazi collaborator belonging to the Ukrainian extreme right in the last century), that Putin is a good leader, who does everything well & rdquor ;, she maintains.

The volunteers help them however they can, of course. “This is a human drama, children and grandparents, people who have to be removed, evacuated. We are trying to give them a little joy, what we can & rdquor ;, says José Casals, a missionary from Lleida. “Here they are better, more relaxed. When we get them out of there they have long faces, come on, come on, run, run. People are tired of the missiles, the bombs, the shootings & rdquor ;, he explains.

two months of war

Olya from Konstantinovka, a city of about 60,000 inhabitants from which she was evacuated a week ago, also shakes her head, raises her hands to the sky, and makes the gesture of the hairs on her skin standing on end to say what proof. She also has family in Russia. “They have invited me to go to their houses, but We don’t talk about politics. I want to stay in Ukraine, I pray every day to have another day of life. It is a horror that this happens in the 21st century & rdquor ;, affirms this woman, a pastry chef by profession. “I have acquaintances who died in the last attack in Kramatorsk & rdquor ;, she adds.

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And it is that, two months after the outbreak of the total war in Ukraine, Russian troops continue to attack daily in the eastern and southeastern areas of Ukraine, in a war of attrition in which some gain some positions, and others rage in resist. Which also supposes a great identity fracture for its inhabitants, as suggested by Tymofiy, a Spanish teacher who is from Dnipro and who has come today, when we do this report, to help as an interpreter.

The difference with the west – where the connections with Russia are less solid, and other countries, such as Poland, have historically exerted greater influence – is that “people here continue to wonder why their brothers are doing this to them & rdquor ;, he says. , frustrated. “We speak Russian, like them. It doesn’t make sense & rdquor ;.


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