Ukraine families evacuated into Russia far from home

Thousands of Ukrainians are being evacuated to Russia but they have no idea where they are going.

Ukrainian children prepare to board a bus in Taganrog to be evacuated deep into Russiae. Picture: AFP

“We’ve been travelling all night and we’re not going any further,” sighed the young woman, stroking the head of her six-month-old son. They were sitting in a vast indoor sports hall in southwest Russia that was providing temporary accommodation for people fleeing separatist-held areas of Ukraine. “But we don’t want to stay here either.”

Yekaterina, 24, is among an estimated 30,000 people who have left Kremlin-backed breakaway republics in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine and gone to Russia since Friday, when the separatists insisted that an impending attack by the Ukrainian army made it too dangerous for women, children and the elderly to stay.

Western countries fear that Russia is preparing to launch a false-flag attack that would let it claim an invasion of Ukraine was justified. Ukraine has denied it is planning to try to retake the coalmining Donbas region by force. Russia said on Saturday that two shells fired from a Ukrainian government-controlled area landed on its territory, a claim that Ukraine denied.

Yekaterina and her son, along with her mother and her younger sister, fled Debaltseve, a town in the separatist-controlled Donetsk People’s Republic, on Saturday, packing their possessions into suitcases and plastic bags. They travelled overnight on a bus provided by the separatists before eventually being taken to the sports centre in Taganrog, a seaside town near the Ukrainian border.

“The journey took 14 hours, when it would usually take five at the most,” Yekaterina said. “We parked up for hours because it turned out there was nowhere for us to go. They had assured us that everything was organised but I got the impression that they didn’t even know we were coming. We slept in the bus.”

The arena was filled with almost 350 fold-out beds covered with shabby bedding and plastic disposable sheets. A huge Russian flag hung on the wall. Soon after they arrived, the evacuees were told they were being put on trains to take them to Nizhny Novgorod, a city in central Russia that is 1300km to the north.

“We travelled all night on a bus to get here and now they want us to travel another 17 hours by train?” said Yekaterina as her mother used her phone to try to find a flat to rent in Taganrog.

People evacuated from the Donetsk region sit in a bus waiting for their train to be evacuated deep into Russia, in the town of Taganrog on Sunday. Picture: AFP

International monitors from the Organisation for Security and Co- operation in Europe said over the weekend there had been about 2000 violations of a shaky 2015 ceasefire deal in Donbas. The Red Cross said a surge in the amount of shelling had disrupted water supplies for more than a million people in the disputed region.

Officials in the separatist territories have said they could evacuate up to 700,000 people, about one quarter of the total population. Some have already been sent to Voronezh, a city about 640km away. Others could eventually be housed in Murmansk, a city north of the Arctic Circle, or in Russia’s far east region.

Abbas Gallyamov, a Russian political analyst, accused President Vladimir Putin of exploiting the evacuees for political ends before a potential incursion into Ukraine. “Crying babies are especially good,” he said. The Kremlin has said that every refugee will be paid 10,000 roubles ($1800), but many evacuees were confused about how they were supposed to get the money.

At the train station in Taganrog, police officers ejected journalists who tried to speak to the evacuees. Not all the travellers appeared to have been told where they were heading. “I’m not going to Nizhny Novgorod,” shouted one woman with a small child. Others appeared to be in no state to make a long journey. Two women who looked to be in their 80s, one with a metal walking frame, had to be helped to the train by emergency services officers.

Near Avilo-Uspenka, a village close to the Donetsk border with Russia, lines of pensioners, women and small children waited to be put on buses. Many were also confused about where they were going. About a dozen inflatable tents had been set up amid the flat Russian steppe to provide temporary shelter.

“It’s frightening in Donetsk because of all the shelling,” said Olga, a middle-aged woman. “But I have no idea where they are sending us. Wherever they tell us, we’ll go. I just hope it’s not for too long. We all want peace.”

The Times