It’s his first time. Yelena, 63, had never left Krasnodon in Luhansk province since the Russians arrived, not with the full-scale invasion of February 2022 but nine years ago, as part of the first occupation offensive of the Donbass region on Ukraine’s eastern edge. You have to sharpen your gaze to see on which side of the border the city Yelena is from is – she prefers to keep her last name. She travels alone and is exhausted. But it’s not only the physical, but above all the tiredness. “I am very fed up with this situation and I want to be with my children,” she says, “they are already waiting for me, I spoke to them today.” Yelena is excited because there is very little left to see them. He is in an aid center in the Ukrainian town of Krasnopillia, next to the Pokrovka border crossing in the north-east of the country. He just left Russian territory. Yelena is one of nearly 150 Ukrainian citizens using the only point on the border between Russia and Ukraine that is currently open daily since the 5th. A humanitarian corridor through which one can escape from the occupied territories to free territory.
In order to understand this journey, one must delve into the geography of Ukraine. The military operation launched by Moscow in 2014 saw Russian control of a third of the Donbass region in the country’s east close to the Russian border, in addition to illegally annexing Crimea – in this case with virtually no gunfire. The invasion, which began almost 18 months ago, now extended this occupied territory to the southwest, forming a kind of land crescent in which millions of citizens were trapped between the war front on one side and the border with the Russian invader on the other. the other. In other words, given the impossibility of crossing the combat operations, the only way to return to the Ukrainian west was to cross the Russian border, further north to neighboring Belarus, and from here, for example, to the Baltic States and Poland to travel to enter western Ukraine. an odyssey
Yelena, 63, has crossed Russian territory and re-entered Ukraine via the Sumi Corridor to be reunited with her children in Kharkiv. / OGOscar Gutierrez
On the 9th, Irina Vereshuk, Minister for the Reintegration of the Temporarily Occupied Territories, reported that citizens wishing to return to the Kiev-controlled territories could do so through the humanitarian corridor between the cities of Kolotilivka on the Russian side and Pokrovka. , from Ukrainian. In an interview with the local press, Vereshuk stated: “It is possible and necessary to go out through this corridor!” The Deputy Prime Minister, who was also Deputy Prime Minister, also reported that there was a second active corridor, but in this case between the Ukrainian province of Volhynia and the Belarusian one Border.
Six days after these statements, at eight in the morning, Yelena began her journey. He speaks with wide eyes. He wants to tell how he got there, how. “In all those years,” he says, “I’ve had to lie, since 2014.” Shortly after the Russian uniformed men showed up in Lugansk that year, her daughter traveled to Kharkov. Later his other son would do it. She stayed home until she said “stop.” On the 15th, Yelena left Krasnodon (renamed Sorokine in 2016) for the Russian province of Belgorod. It took him twelve hours to reach Kolotilivka on his way north, parallel to the border between the two countries. The hardest drink awaited him, the Russian leak trial, which was two hours of interrogation before he was allowed to walk two kilometers to the Ukrainian border control. “It was very difficult,” he recalls, overwhelmed. “They asked me to support Russia, their special operation; I had to lie and say yes to them so they would let me through.” According to his story, the experiences of other citizens were not that difficult.
Join EL PAÍS to follow all the news and read without restrictions.
subscribe to
According to the Ukrainian government, since August 5, between 150 and 200 people have crossed the Kolotilivka-Pokrovka pass every day. In fact, that day was the first since the reopening of this humanitarian corridor, which the Russian authorities had closed two weeks earlier. Details on how and when this pass was first opened, why it was closed on July 22 and has now reopened are scarce. And this is mainly because Kiev claims that there is no communication with Moscow and that there is little else to say. Katerina Arisoi, 36, head of Pluriton, the organization that created the Krasnopillia aid center, says the corridor has been working for months but little is known about it; that it depends on whether the Russians open up or not, and that information now appears to be flowing towards the occupied territories. “People come more because they know that there is help here,” says Arisoi.
Several minibuses reach this center from the Pokrovka Pass, which is carefully cordoned off by the authorities for security reasons. The Krasnopillia plant in Sumi province is not closed; The presence of the organs of order is relaxed, but inside there is control. Access to the facility, which is used by the army, police and the Ukrainian Security Service (a special unit of the secret service) to conduct their own filtering operations, is restricted. The door closes in front of the clapping gaze, but opens again after a while. The newcomers wait in a room with registration papers in hand. At the top, those who finish can go for lunch. Serhi Bondarenko, a seventy-year-old, could not take it and went to the dining room before completing this process. He doesn’t mind talking to the press over dinner. He manages to say that he is from Donetsk before being cut off, because it is not advisable to speak to a reporter until the end of the interrogation.
Anatoly Oleinik, 65, has paid around 215 euros for the trip, which took him from Russian-held territory via the Sumi Corridor to Kiev-controlled Ukraine. /OG
Anatoli Oleinik, 65, is also hungry, but has finished the leak and can chat. His journey began in the small town of Olkhovatka in Donetsk Province, in the heart of the Russian-controlled Crescent. He says that everything was going well in his community in 2015, but not anymore. His journey across the Russian border cost him 22,000 rubles, about 215 euros. He does not travel alone, but with his wife Galina, 66 years old. She is more shy, she does not want photos, but finally, with a smile and great tiredness, she agrees that her husband is posing. The two will meet with their daughter in Kharkiv.
filtration process
Perhaps Katerina Arisoi was right when she said that the occupied territories finally learned that those who want to flee can do so through the Kolotilivka-Pokrovka corridor. If Anatoly and Galina started their route because they received information from their compatriots that they could cross, something similar says Nicolai, 68, a native of Yenakiyevo, just 20 kilometers from Olkhovatka. “A couple of neighbors met us,” says this man as he walks towards the dining room, “and we came.” He speaks of a very long journey that left him “exhausted”. “We arrived at the Russian border by bus and then had to walk the two kilometers,” he continues. In his case, the interrogation at the Belgorod checkpoint by the intruders proceeded quickly. Stop the conversation because hunger is pressing.
In the Krasnopillia Help Center, the filtering process doesn’t seem to take long. It can last anywhere from two to four hours, although some say some lasted all day. Lieutenant Danilo – he prefers to keep his last name –, 23, explains what they do: “We register the day of their entry, their first and last name, their passport number, where they come from, where they go…”. They then compare this data with a database that only the security forces have access to. There may be a relative who is looking for you and they know through this file. Aside from the register, this mechanism aims to ensure that the citizen entering from enemy territory does not pose a threat to the country. If so, it would already fall within the purview of a police investigation.
With God’s help
True, this soldier assures that the Kolotilivka-Pokrovka corridor, which is also used for the exchange of prisoners and the transfer of dead soldiers, allows Ukrainian citizens to enter the territory ruled by Kiev, but vice versa, that is, crossing to Russia is not permitted. If so, then someone would have to tell Lidia Litvinenko, 70, for the following reason: This woman, a practicing and devout Christian, “reaffirms several times her faith in Jesus Christ and her gratitude to God for what she has,” resides in the City of Donetsk. “A city that I love,” he says while drinking tea, “in which there were neither rockets nor shots.” He has a daughter who has lived in Kiev since 2014 and a granddaughter who emigrated to France. Litvinenko is now traveling to the Ukrainian capital to celebrate his 71st birthday with his family. Then, he admits without a trace of surprise, he will return home.
“Will you return to Donetsk, which is occupied by the Russians?”
“Yes, it is my city and God help me.
Perhaps Litvinenko needs more than divine help for this new journey.
Follow all international information on Facebook and Twitteror in our weekly newsletter.
Subscribe to continue reading
Read without limits