Angry at Russia’s inaction after a shock Ukrainian offensive put her parents on the other side of the front line, Lyubov Prilutskaya is one of the few Russians willing to speak out.
Prilutskaya was one of many who lost contact with loved ones after Kyiv’s troops launched a major incursion into Russia’s Kursk border region in August last year, seizing control of dozens of settlements and opening a new front in the nearly three-year conflict.
The 37-year-old has spent the past five months trying to locate her elderly mother and father — to no avail.
Photo: EPA-EFE
In despair she turned to social media to accuse the authorities of “incompetence” over their failure to track down missing people, in an emotional video published earlier this month.
The immediate spark was a list published by the local governor and Russia’s rights ombudsman that was presented as an official register of missing people. She said the 517 names were an incomplete list and even included the names of some people known to be dead.
She called it a “spit in the face” for those who had spent months fruitlessly searching for news of lost relatives.
Such public attacks on the authorities are rare in Russia.
Moscow has outlawed criticism of the Ukraine offensive under strict military censorship laws, punishable by years in prison.
In comments under her video on the VKontakte social media platform, some praised Prilutskaya’s “courage” and “honesty.”
Others warned her.
However, in a phone interview with AFP she said she was “not afraid” and that staying silent was “simply impossible.”
“I see that nothing is being done to search for the people left under occupation,” she said, expressing her “huge anger” at official inaction.
Families trying to find their relatives are left “completely in the dark,” she said.
“In order to somehow express our outrage, we are forced to go on social media, because it is impossible to do it any other way,” she said.
An estate agent and mother of four, Prilutskaya lives in the regional capital of Kursk, about 90km from the border.
Her parents had refused to leave their village of Zaoleshenka, 10km from Ukraine, despite increasing drone attacks ahead of the August offensive.
In a photo of the couple, Prilutskaya’s father sports a bushy mustache, while her mother’s fine hair is pulled back into a ponytail.
Before retiring, he was a farm worker while she worked as an agriculture inspector, living in Zaoleshenka virtually their entire lives.
“My parents have nothing except their house,” Prilutskaya said.
They were last in touch on Aug. 5 last year, when Prilutskaya told her parents to prepare to leave as she would come to collect them.
Within 24 hours, Ukrainian tanks were in the adjacent village.
Phone lines were down and communication across the new front line had become impossible. In the frantic search for accurate information that followed, Prilutskaya said she realized she could not rely on officials, accusing them of “hushing up” the plight of those searching for missing loved ones.
Amid criticism of the list of missing people, Prilutskaya said she received a phone call and letter from Russian ombudswoman Tatyana Moskalkova, who admitted the register was “far from exhaustive.”
Moskalkova said last week she had held a rare meeting with her Ukrainian counterpart in which they discussed “the search for missing residents of the Kursk region.”
The Kursk regional government had yet to reply to an AFP request to comment. Kursk Governor Alexander Khinshtein has pushed back against some of the criticism, writing on Telegram that Ukraine was “holding onto Russian citizens.”
On Saturday, dozens of residents confronted him at a small-scale protest to demand the return of those in the occupied zones and better conditions for people displaced by the fighting.
Ukraine has returned a handful of residents to Russia after they were caught in areas it had taken control of.
The Ukrainian army spokesman for the occupied zone, Oleksiy Dmytrashkivsky, said about 2,000 civilians were still living there.
He called the Russian list of missing people a “lie,” but said he had no information on Prilutskaya’s case.
Artillery and drones made the area extremely dangerous, he said, but added that Ukraine had managed to locate about 800 people after their relatives and friends got in touch.
However, reaching out to the Ukrainian military is fraught with risks under Russian law.
“So what options are left?” Prilutskaya asked. “Only public appeals.”
‘GREAT OPPRTUNITY’: The Paraguayan president made the remarks following Donald Trump’s tapping of several figures with deep Latin America expertise for his Cabinet Paraguay President Santiago Pena called US president-elect Donald Trump’s incoming foreign policy team a “dream come true” as his nation stands to become more relevant in the next US administration. “It’s a great opportunity for us to advance very, very fast in the bilateral agenda on trade, security, rule of law and make Paraguay a much closer ally” to the US, Pena said in an interview in Washington ahead of Trump’s inauguration today. “One of the biggest challenges for Paraguay was that image of an island surrounded by land, a country that was isolated and not many people know about it,”
DIALOGUE: US president-elect Donald Trump on his Truth Social platform confirmed that he had spoken with Xi, saying ‘the call was a very good one’ for the US and China US president-elect Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) discussed Taiwan, trade, fentanyl and TikTok in a phone call on Friday, just days before Trump heads back to the White House with vows to impose tariffs and other measures on the US’ biggest rival. Despite that, Xi congratulated Trump on his second term and pushed for improved ties, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs said. The call came the same day that the US Supreme Court backed a law banning TikTok unless it is sold by its China-based parent company. “We both attach great importance to interaction, hope for
‘FIGHT TO THE END’: Attacking a court is ‘unprecedented’ in South Korea and those involved would likely face jail time, a South Korean political pundit said Supporters of impeached South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol yesterday stormed a Seoul court after a judge extended the impeached leader’s detention over his ill-fated attempt to impose martial law. Tens of thousands of people had gathered outside the Seoul Western District Court on Saturday in a show of support for Yoon, who became South Korea’s first sitting head of state to be arrested in a dawn raid last week. After the court extended his detention on Saturday, the president’s supporters smashed windows and doors as they rushed inside the building. Hundreds of police officers charged into the court, arresting dozens and denouncing an
RELEASE: The move follows Washington’s removal of Havana from its list of terrorism sponsors. Most of the inmates were arrested for taking part in anti-government protests Cuba has freed 127 prisoners, including opposition leader Jose Daniel Ferrer, in a landmark deal with departing US President Joe Biden that has led to emotional reunions across the communist island. Ferrer, 54, is the most high-profile of the prisoners that Cuba began freeing on Wednesday after Biden agreed to remove the country from Washington’s list of terrorism sponsors — part of an eleventh-hour bid to cement his legacy before handing power on Monday to US president-elect Donald Trump. “Thank God we have him home,” Nelva Ortega said of her husband, Ferrer, who has been in and out of prison for the
RSS