Life under occupation: 'Russians say they came to liberate'

Seventy-year-old Lyubov was the first person to approach the Belarus-Ukraine border. Dragging her suitcase, she wove her way around the anti-tank barriers until she got to the hut for volunteers. It was warm inside; one of the volunteers was making coffee. Lyubov took red lipstick from her purse and touched up her makeup.

A pensioner, Lyubov is from a village near Mariupol, which is now under Russian control. Her sons and grandchildren live in Odesa. Before the full-scale invasion by Russia in 2022, she would visit her children in Odesa several times a year. "I'd get on the bus and be there by morning," she said.

When the Russian army occupied part of eastern and southern Ukraine, the family was divided by the front line. Now, travelers from the occupied regions to Odesa must journey through Russia and then Belarus and have to return via the European Union.

All the checkpoints to Crimea, which was annexed by Russia in 2014, and to the self-declared "People's Republics" of Donetsk and Luhansk are closed. The last border crossing between Ukraine and Russia, in the Sumy region, closed in August because of fighting in the nearby Kursk region.

Residents of the regions occupied by Russia are now only able to enter territory controlled by Ukraine at the northwestern border with Belarus, through the crossing between the villages of Mokrany and Domanove. Most people who come this way don't have the passports or money they would need to enter the European Union.

Long, expensive journey

This is the first time that Lyubov has left the occupied territories. "I thought all this would soon be over," she said, "but that's not how it turned out." She misses her children and grandchildren, whom she hadn't seen for three years. And now, she said, she no longer has the strength to prepare the firewood she needs for winter. "I haven't got anyone there anymore," Lyubov said.

The two-day bus journey through Russia and Belarus cost €300 ($310). The travelers had to walk the final 2 kilometers (1.2 miles). "Thank God our border guards put my suitcase on a cart," Lyuobov said.

At the checkpoint, Lyubov was questioned by Ukrainian officials. She acknowledged that she also has a Russian passport. It is the only way she can claim her pension. "I get 16,000 rubles (€147/$153), but the coal to heat the stove costs 40,000 rubles," Lyubov said. "So I had to save and go hungry for almost three months to pay for firewood and electricity, too."

'Why don't you want to stay in Russia?'

Irina was waiting on the Ukraine side of the checkpoint to pick up her 83-year-old mother-in-law, who had traveled from Luhansk, whose house had been requisitioned by the occupying Russian forces. "She was thrown out of her own home," Irina said, who added that she tried to fight to keep the house, even calling the Russian military. "A man who introduced himself as Colonel Alexei just said my mother-in-law was to hand over the keys," she said.

She worried about whether her mother-in-law would survive the journey; her health has deteriorated during the conflict and occupation, she said. When Irina's mother-in-law arrived at the checkpoint, she rummaged in her bags for her passport and started to panic. Her daughter-in-law and the volunteers try to calm her down. At last she finds it. This checkpoint is the quickest and cheapest way for her to enter Ukrainian-controlled territory. Many people come here because Ukrainians are let through even without identity papers.

The journey continues after the travelers cross into Ukrainian-controlled territory. There are often hundreds of kilometers more to their families and friends. Twenty-three-year-old Alina, who had moved from Mariupol to Odesa before Russia's invasion, was returning to Ukraine after visiting her parents in her hometown for the first time in three years. "They're surviving," Alina said of her parents. Her mother works in a hair salon, and her father is a builder. "There are no other jobs there now," Alina said.

To get to Mariupol, Alina traveled through western Ukraine, Poland, Belarus and Russia. This five-day journey cost her about €700. She had no problems entering Russia and the occupied territories because she is registered with the local authorities there. "The Mariupol I knew doesn't exist anymore," Alina said. She shook her head, remembering the what the Russian border guard said as she left the occupied region: "Why don't you want to stay in Russia?"

'I'm in Ukraine!'

People are given entry certificates once they arrive. From the volunteers, they also receive a one-off cash assistance, provided by the Norwegian Refugee Council, and a starter pack from a cellphone provider. Immediately, they call their relatives. "I'm in Ukraine!" an elderly man named Oleksandr shouted with tears in his eyes. He was calling his wife, who had arrived in Kyiv a few days earlier.

The couple have left the city of Alchevsk in Luhansk. Oleksandr was turned away at the Estonian border because he didn't have a Ukrainian passport, so he came through Belarus instead. Asked whether he wanted to go back to Alchevsk, he said: "All my relatives have gone. We used to get through 50 jars of pickled gherkins each winter. Now there are jars full of them just sitting around in the cellar."

People crowded around a bus that would take them to Kovel, the nearest city. Oleksandr talked about his cats, whom he had to leave with his neighbors. "Some people think we're traitors, but no one can see into our souls," he said, loading bags onto the bus. "I can assure you," he added, "many people there are waiting for Ukraine."

'We had a good life back then'

Fifty-nine-year-old Volodymyr traveled straight from a hospital in Skadovsk in the southern Kherson Oblast. Originally from a village near the city of Oleshky, he was hospitalized a few months ago when a drone exploded in his front yard. "The whole place was flying about my ears!" he said.

Volodymyr has a spinal injury and broken ribs. Now he wants to continue his medical treatment in the city of Kherson. It's just the other side of the Dnipro river from Oleshky — in the Ukrainian-controlled region. He has family waiting for him there: a daughter, three grandchildren and two sisters. He used to visit them often; the journey only took an hour. "I've been traveling for almost two weeks," Volodymyr said.

"The Russians say they came to liberate us," he said. "But we had a good life back then, and we had work. The drone destroyed my kitchen. I don't know what it looks like there now. Maybe I don't have a house at all anymore."

'We can't be blamed for staying'

On that day, there were four buses taking 44 passengers to Kovel. When they arrived, they would be taken to an emergency shelter run by a church. There, they would be fed, and assisted in buying train or bus tickets for their onward journeys. Those who wouldn't traveling until the following day could stay the night.

Lyubov wanted to rest before traveling on to Odesa. She plans to go back to her village near Mariupol in the spring. But it is only possible to cross the Mokrany-Domanove checkpoint in one direction: into Ukraine. Lyubov will have to travel back via the European Union, which means that her journey will be longer and more expensive.

She worries that she could lose her home if she stays in Odesa. The occupation authorities are seizing unoccupied houses and apartments that haven't been reregistered in accordance with Russian regulations. This is one of the reasons why Ukrainians return to the occupied territories. "We can't be blamed for staying," Lyubov said. She can't bear to think of being unable to return home. "I don't want to have my house taken away from me: all my things, my photos," she said. "I don't want anybody rummaging through them."

This article was originally written in Russian.