For a year and a half Galina Artyomenko had been raising funds to help refugees from Ukraine after the Kremlin sent troops to the country.
Then, in July the 58-year-old resident of Saint Petersburg in northwestern Russia discovered that one of her bank cards as well as those of two other volunteers had been blocked.
“According to the bank, our ‘collections’ were for ‘questionable purposes,’” Artyomenko said, insisting that she can justify “every ruble spent.”
photo: afp
After Russian President Vladimir Putin sent troops to Ukraine last year, the authorities ramped up a crackdown on dissent, with those criticizing the assault facing long prison terms.
Like other volunteers helping Ukrainians, Artyomenko is careful not to express an opinion on the ongoing conflict as even humanitarian operations can sometimes be viewed with suspicion in Russia.
Despite the obstacles she has faced, she collects donations online and uses the money to buy clothes, medicine and food for people forced to flee to Russia or Russian-controlled territory in Ukraine.
She regularly welcomes Ukrainians arriving in Saint Petersburg by train, helping them find accommodation, work, or arrange for their onward travel to the EU from Russia.
Artyomenko said that “thousands of people” in Russia were helping Ukrainians.
“But they prefer not to talk about it, for security reasons,” she said. “Even if no law prohibits helping people who have fallen into misfortune.”
Many volunteers refuse to speak about Moscow’s offensive in Ukraine or their help to refugees, for fear of attracting the attention of the authorities who regularly arrest people accused of collaborating with Kyiv or “discrediting” the Russian army.
Lyudmila, a 43-year-old volunteer who preferred to withhold her last name, said many such people are “pacifists” who cannot openly express their position and ease their conscience by helping the victims of the conflict.
“We cannot stand idly by, we must help those who are in a worse situation than us and who are suffering,” Lyudmila said.
Artyomenko added: “This is the only way left for us to exist. That’s all we can still do.”
According to the UN, nearly 1.3 million refugees from Ukraine were recorded in Russia as of December last year.
According to Russia’s estimates — disputed by NGOs — the count stands at more than 5 million.
Some of those people are in transit, particularly in northwest Russia, which borders the EU.
Others say they want to stay in Russia.
Kyiv has accused the Kremlin of having deported Ukrainians to Russia and of pushing them to obtain Russian passports.
In March, the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Putin and his commissioner for children’s rights, Maria Lvova-Belova, over the “unlawful deportation” of Ukrainian children.
Moscow has denied the charge, insisting that the Ukrainians arrived voluntarily or were evacuated to safety.
Solidarity networks helping refugees such as the one involving Artyomenko have been operating in Russia since the start of the offensive last year.
On a recent Saturday, Artyomenko bought and dropped off some household products at a humanitarian aid warehouse for Ukrainian refugees.
Shoes, clothes, food products, and household appliances could be seen sitting on wooden racks at the collection point that is visited by up to 10 families a day.
Then Artyomenko went to buy a pair of glasses for a woman from the eastern Ukrainian town of Bakhmut, which Moscow captured in the spring.
In Moscow the “Mayak.fund,” one of Russia’s best-known charities, receives up to 50 people a day, down from record numbers seen last year, volunteer Yulia Makeyeva said.
Makeyeva admitted that it was hard to see the suffering of refugees.
“To maintain energy and hope, I try to keep my distance, otherwise I cannot work, I can only cry,” she said.
As she was being interviewed, Yulia, who fled the town of Kupyansk in northeastern Ukraine almost a year ago with her children, aged seven and three, began to sob as she recounted the story of their survival under attacks.
Kupyansk and nearby areas in the Kharkiv region were retaken by Kyiv in September last year, after six months of being in Russian hands, but Moscow is now pushing back.
“I just want peace,” Yulia said.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un sent Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) greetings with what appeared to be restrained rhetoric that comes as Pyongyang moves closer to Russia and depends less on its long-time Asian ally. Kim wished “the Chinese people greater success in building a modern socialist country,” in a reply message to Xi for his congratulations on North Korea’s birthday, the state-run Korean Central News Agency reported yesterday. The 190-word dispatch had little of the florid language that had been a staple of their correspondence, which has declined significantly this year, an analysis by Seoul-based specialist service NK Pro showed. It said
On an island of windswept tundra in the Bering Sea, hundreds of miles from mainland Alaska, a resident sitting outside their home saw — well, did they see it? They were pretty sure they saw it — a rat. The purported sighting would not have gotten attention in many places around the world, but it caused a stir on Saint Paul Island, which is part of the Pribilof Islands, a birding haven sometimes called the “Galapagos of the north” for its diversity of life. That is because rats that stow away on vessels can quickly populate and overrun remote islands, devastating bird
‘CLOSER TO THE END’: The Ukrainian leader said in an interview that only from a ‘strong position’ can Ukraine push Russian President Vladimir Putin ‘to stop the war’ Decisive actions by the US now could hasten the end of the Russian war against Ukraine next year, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Monday after telling ABC News that his nation was “closer to the end of the war.” “Now, at the end of the year, we have a real opportunity to strengthen cooperation between Ukraine and the United States,” Zelenskiy said in a post on Telegram after meeting with a bipartisan delegation from the US Congress. “Decisive action now could hasten the just end of Russian aggression against Ukraine next year,” he wrote. Zelenskiy is in the US for the UN
A 64-year-old US woman took her own life inside a controversial suicide capsule at a Swiss woodland retreat, with Swiss police on Tuesday saying several people had been arrested. The space-age looking Sarco capsule, which fills with nitrogen and causes death by hypoxia, was used on Monday outside a village near the German border. The portable human-sized pod, self-operated by a button inside, has raised a host of legal and ethical questions in Switzerland. Active euthanasia is banned in the country, but assisted dying has been legal for decades. On the same day it was used, Swiss Department of Home