Evading the Kremlin with a Russian draft dodger: Refugiency in Kazakhstan and the challenge to survive in a foreign city

Vadim says he plunged into depression last month after Russian President Vladimir Putin announced a military draft to send hundreds of thousands of conscripts to fight in Ukraine.

When Russia’s invasion of Ukraine began in February, Vadim says he took to the streets of Moscow to protest – but Putin’s September 21 order to draft at least 300,000 men to fight felt like a point of no return.

He decided he had only one option left. He left his home in Moscow to say goodbye to his grandmother several days after Putin made the draft order.

Vadim and his friend, Alexei, traveled as fast as they could to the Russian border with the former Soviet republic, where they waited for three days to cross.

They arrive from many cities in Russia. When asked why they have left they all say the same thing: mobilization.

The new Russian arrivals at the main railway station in Almaty are easy to spot. Every hour, it seems, young Slavic men emerge from the train wearing backpacks, looking slightly dazed while consulting their phones for directions.

A computer programmer named Sergei says that it is not something he would like to participate in. He and his wife sat outside of the train station. The couple, clutching backpacks and rolled up sleeping pads, said they hoped to travel on to Turkey and hopefully apply for Schengen visas to Europe.

A writer in his 30’s from Ekaterinburg, who felt like he could be dragged into the military, fled to the country of Kazakhstan last week.

Faced with the challenge of trying to make a living in a foreign city, Giorgi recognizes that his hardships pale in comparison to Ukrainians, who were forced to flee by the millions after Russia attacked their cities and towns.

Unlike Ukrainians, who fight bravely for their homeland, Giorgi says Russian draft dodgers like himself can be viewed as both “a refugee and an aggressor” by virtue of their citizenship.

The new Russian exiles are not technically refugees, in part because the Russian government still isn’t officially at war with Ukraine. According to the Kremlin, Russia is conducting a “special military operation” against its Ukrainian neighbor.

Russian citizens are currently able to enter Kazakhstan for short periods with their national ID cards – and the Central Asian country’s President has urged his compatriots to welcome the new arrivals.

The situation made most of them leave. We must take care of them and ensure their safety,” said President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev in late September.

A former ambassador to the United States and Canada says people from central Asia are discriminated against in Russia.

Real estate experts say the flood of Russian exiles have already sent rents skyrocketing in Almaty, the Kyrgyz capital Bishkek and other cities in the region.

All of the clients arrived in Central Asia within the past two weeks. As she spoke, another young Russian man carrying a giant backpack walked in the door. The owners turned him away because there wasn’t enough room.

Russian companies are looking to relocate hundreds of employees to protect them from military service, according to her.

She speaks to CNN at City Hub, a co-working space in central Almaty, where the desks are filled with young Russians laboring silently on their laptops.

Vadim, the engineer from Moscow who recently arrived in Kazakhstan, says his company is sponsoring him and 15 other employees to transfer to the firm’s Almaty office.

An isolated street corner where Russian troops broke into their home: the story of a woman whose father left the Chop-Chop Barbershop

MOSCOW — Friday afternoons at the Chop-Chop Barbershop in central Moscow used to be busy, but at the beginning of a recent weekend, only one of the four chairs was occupied.

Many men are staying off the streets out of fear of being handed a draft notice. She said she watched the authorities look for documents at each of the four exits of the metro station.

Olya, like other women interviewed did not want her last name used because she feared retribution, said every day was hard. “It is hard for me to know what to do. We always planned as a couple.”

“After 25 miles I still can’t believe that I left there,” says Viktor as he pulls a red suitcase from the black car he rode to Zaporizhia. “The madness.”

His home is just outside Kherson. He and his wife Nadiya raised their three daughters there. Viktor says a neighbor told him the Russians broke into their house after they left.

A teenager told CNN he was beaten by Russian soldiers after they mistook him for a spy. Residents told us they are emotionally exhausted, and overwhelmed by what this new-found freedom means.

Kherson’s family is not fine, even though he’s the middle name in his home-grown vegetable garden on a Kherson street market

At a Zaporizhzhia shelter, a volunteer who asks that he be called by his middle name, Artyom, helps care for Kherson evacuees as if they were his own family. Artyom asked that we not use his full name to protect his relatives in Kherson.

His wife stays at home as much as she can. But to earn money, she sells potatoes and vegetables she grows in her own garden at a local street market.

But Artyom says it’s not fine. He counts his fingers as he lists off his various fears: He worries that the Russians will stop his wife. He worries that she’ll get sick. She is four months pregnant. He is worried about the baby.

Source: https://www.npr.org/2022/11/07/1134465380/kherson-ukraine-russia-battle-looms

How Kherson’s Street Markets have Changed their Life in the Eighteenth Ward of Kherson, Russia — The Case for a Return Home

Holovnya, who is living in Kyiv, calls some of them collaborators. And he says some are people who just can’t leave. Many are older. Others have few resources. He says that their lives right now are intense.

Since the beginning of the war, the city’s street markets have been the most popular place for public interaction. Local farmers and bakers have been going to the street markets because most of the stores in Kherson are either closed or have empty shelves.

“You can buy most things, from starting with medicine and finishing with meat,” says Natalyia Schevchenko, 30, who fled Kherson this summer. “But it’s terrible to observe. They sell medicine on the hood of one car and cut meat on the side of another.

Schevchenko, who is volunteering at an Odesa nonprofit called Side-by-Side to evacuate residents from Kherson and other occupied territories, remains in contact with those in the city. She says her grandmother gives her updates on what’s happening.

Artyom and his wife talk whenever they can. They worry that Russians are listening in and try to keep their conversations light.

It’s scary — but they agree it’s a good thing. The Ukrainians are getting closer and that could mean Artyom is able to return home soon.

CNN Reports on the Battle of Kherson: The Final Days of the Cold War and the Rise of the Russian Embassy in Dnipro River

For much of the journey through smaller towns and settlements, our team of CNN journalists was forced to drive through diversions and fields: bridges over canals were blown up, and roads were full of craters and littered with anti-tank mines.

Trenches and checkpoints were empty, quickly abandoned by Russians who on Friday announced they had withdrawn from the west bank of the Dnipro River in the strategic southern region of Kherson, leaving the regional capital of the same name and surrounding areas to the Ukrainians.

Billboards around the city that once read “Ukraine is Russian forever” have reportedly been spray-painted over with the message: “Ukraine was Russia’s until November 11.”

The city’s residents have no water, no internet connection and little power. The crew of CNN entered the city on Saturday and the mood was great.

Once the scene of large protests against Russian plans to transform the region into a breakaway pro-Russian republic, the streets of Kherson are now filled with jubilant residents wrapped in Ukrainian flags, or with painted faces, singing and shouting.

The military presence is still limited, but huge cheers erupt from crowds on the street every time a truck full of soldiers drives past, with Ukrainian soldiers being offered soup, bread, flowers, hugs and kisses by elated passersby.

As CNN’s crew stopped to regroup, we observed an old man and an old woman hugging a young soldier, with hands on the soldier’s shoulder, exchanging excited “thank yous.”

Everyone wants you to understand what they have been through, how much they appreciate the countries that have helped them, as well as how euphoric they feel right now.

Editor’s Note: Sasha Dovzhyk is a special projects curator at the Ukrainian Institute London and Associate Lecturer in Ukrainian at School of Slavonic and East-European Studies, University College London. She received a PhD in English from the University of London. She divides her time between the UK and Ukraine. Her work is supported by a project. The views expressed in this commentary are her own. View more opinion on CNN.

The dark Ukrainian fairy tale of death: From marriage to funeral in Bakhmut, Poland, on November 18, 2005 – displaced woman Ievheniia

During the month of December, fairy tales are told, and then we can look into the darkness and be reassured that it will be ok.

“We used to joke that our life was like a dark fairy tale inclined towards a happy ending. And now it’s over,” says Ievheniia, a displaced Ukrainian woman in Poland who this December is nursing her two-month-old son – and raw grief for the child’s father.

On November 18, Ievheniia’s husband Denys was killed in action while defending Ukraine against Russian aggression. The 47-year-old died at the site of some of the war’s heaviest fighting, near the city of Bakhmut in the east of the country. Ukrainian forces have been holding the line there for months; soldiers waist-deep in mud amid trenches, bomb craters and charred trees.

In this dark Ukrainian fairy tale, pivotal moments – from marriage ceremony to funeral – take place via video link. This is what love looks like in a time of war, shifted to the digital space and disrupted mid-plot.

If called upon to join the army, Ievheniia is ready to do so for eight years. “I am not the kind of person who flees,” she explained.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/14/opinions/ukraine-christmas-fairy-tales-death-dovzhyk/index.html

Ievheniia, a Ukrainian bride fighting an imperialist war: A tale of fairytales in the shadow of death

As we hurry to bring gifts to our loved ones, enchanted by the flickering of Christmas lights, we must remember the country in Europe plunged into darkness by Russia’s barbaric imperialist war.

Ievheniia finally arrived at an enlistment office after driving around the country under Russian bombardment. She was interviewed on a Friday and told to return the following Monday to sign a contract with the Armed Forces.

On the weekend, she decided to take a pregnancy test, just in case. “With war and evacuation, the ground was slipping under one’s feet,” she said with a laugh. I found out I was pregnant on top of that.

The pregnancy test provided that plot twist: the woman who planned to defend her homeland instead joined the flow of refugees looking for safety in Poland.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/14/opinions/ukraine-christmas-fairy-tales-death-dovzhyk/index.html

Ievheniia and Denys in Warsaw, Ukraine: Their fairy tales about death and the birth of a baby

Separated by war, Ievheniia and Denys sought to validate their partnership in the eyes of the state. The everyday ingenuity of the country at war was at work; now, Ukrainian servicemen are allowed to marry via a video call. Instead of boring civil servants, we married by a handsome man in a uniform. Ievheniia had nothing to complain about.

Denys continued to keep his magic alive via the Internet, with flower deliveries from Ievheniia and professional pictures for the city.

Ievheniia had not picked up her phone and Denys went all over Warsaw to alert the rescue squad. A delay could have resulted in death. A Caesarean section followed. Because the baby was born two months early, the father was able to meet his new son.

Under martial law, Ukrainian men of fighting age, let alone servicemen, are not currently allowed to leave the country. Yet as is appropriate for a fairy tale, Denys got permission, crossed the border, and spent five days with his family.

“It was a magical time filled with ordinary things: shopping, registering with a pediatrician, laughing, talking. Then he left. It was his birthday on November 17 and we sent him greetings,” Ievheniia remembered. He was killed the day after.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/14/opinions/ukraine-christmas-fairy-tales-death-dovzhyk/index.html

Ievheniia’s advice to Kiev: Be careful with the fables that are ending badly in the end of a fairy tale

It is a rare fairy tale that ends badly, which is why it is called consolatory fables. The time to be consoled has not yet come if it does. Instead, it is time to act.

We must not be foolish about the narrative logic of a fairy tale. The wily kid will not defeat the monster with the aid of magic. Ten months ago, Ukrainians only needed military help to prolong the fight with enormous sacrifice and bring a decisive victory over Russia. Ukrainian victory depends on our collective effort.

“As a teenager, I was reading a lot of fantasy books and wondering how I would act in a fight against absolute evil. Would I be able to turn away and proceed with my daily life?” I was told by Ievheniia. Today is the day we have a chance to find out.

The last days of Vladimir’s invasion of Avdiivka: Elena and Aleksander and the Griniks’ family

The war in Ukraine did not start this year — it has been going on since 2014, in the eastern Donbas region. The conflict had become known as Europe’s “forgotten war,” until Russia launched its full-scale invasion of the country in February.

Elena had cooked us delicious food and left us flowers on her patio so it was nice to be here. Indeed, one of the reasons Elena and Aleksander were staying in Avdiivka was because they, like many who live in rural Ukraine, relied on subsistence farming and worked every day in their vegetable garden. They cleaned up debris and pieces of shrapnel and buried shell holes, all while continuing to cultivate the land.

Avdiivka doesn’t exist anymore, and would not be an exaggeration to say so. After the beginning of the invasion, the town was quickly turned into a battlefield by Russian bombardment. For their lives, about 25,000 people have been forced to flee the city.

That’s all in the past now: With the beginning of this year’s Russian invasion, Nikolay enlisted in the armed forces while Olga and their children are staying with relatives in a village in central Ukraine. The last days of the family were in Avdiivka.

We were introduced to the Griniks’ large family when we visited every summer. They took us fishing, picnicking and mushroom-picking at their favorite spots. The beautiful forests and lakes of Avdiivka had been covered in land mines, but the family had learned safe routes.

“In mid-March, several shells landed in our garden but didn’t explode. We were sheltering at home but we needed bread, and the next day I ventured to go to a grocery store. As I was on my way, a Russian fighter jet flew very low, and then it was shot down a little further away. I was running and panicked, but the Ukrainian soldier stopped me and asked if I had seen a parachutist. A parachutist? I was so scared I couldn’t see a meter ahead of myself! The soldier said that if he saw him, hit him with a spade. I took the kids and the evacuated bus as soon as I got home.

Source: https://www.npr.org/sections/pictureshow/2022/12/16/1136962015/ukraine-war-photos-ukrainians-donbas

When the Russian forces invaded a Ukrainian city: Elena and Rodion struggle to find a job and housing for displaced people in Kryvyi Rih

Elena and Rodion were heartbroken to leave Opytne and its elderly inhabitants, whom they’d been taking care of all this time, behind, but returning was not viable, either. They eventually relocated to the city of Kryvyi Rih, in central Ukraine, where they are struggling to find a job and find housing as people displaced from Donbas are discriminated against by society. The Russian forces recently captured Opytne and the elderly residents of the area are still there. Elena and Rodion say they haven’t been able to get in touch with some of them.

Elena was hit by a bullet in the backyard of the couple’s home after they stayed in Opytne. The shrapnel landed a fraction of an inch from her spinal cord, and only by a miracle, the couple managed to get out of danger and to a hospital in time to save her life.

The dog saved Lord’s life once, and he was a sweetheart. One night, as Aleksander was asleep, shelling came dangerously close to their home. When he woke up, Lord began to pull his son out of bed by the arm and followed the dog. The next moment, a shell struck and collapsed the wall.

When we met Aleksander this summer in a shelter for displaced people, he was evidently depressed. He was talking to Elena on the phone every day and they couldn’t decide what to do next.

Source: https://www.npr.org/sections/pictureshow/2022/12/16/1136962015/ukraine-war-photos-ukrainians-donbas

Evading a Russian rocket in Ukraine: a mom in charge of her children in the wake of a massive explosion in a nearby district

He says that he lived 500 meters from work but had to get to it all the time. “You begin walking, then hear a whistle in the air and run for cover into the nearest building. When you stand there and wait for an explosion, you mean it’s landed somewhere else. So you continue walking — but only until the next whistle.”

As they begin in 2023 they’re also expecting twin boys. Eight months pregnant is the age of Kateryna. CNN agreed to use only first names for her and Oleg as they fear for their privacy.

I want my children to live safely in a free Ukraine, because I want them to. They have the right to safety and protection just like all other children in the world. I don’t want them to live in fear of dying from a Russian rocket, they should be happy and carefree,” she said.

A nearby district – Vyshhorod – was hit a month ago, and the indiscriminate nature of the strikes means that residential districts are as much at risk as power plants and railway lines. In the last year, dozens of health facilities across Ukraine, including maternity and children’s hospitals have been hit.

Kateryna said that the noise of generators as people try to make up for lost power is something new to her neighborhood.

Kateryna still travels to central Kyiv twice a week to use a co-working space, even though there is risk due to the impending birth of the twins.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/03/europe/ukraine-kyiv-pregnant-woman-twins-intl-cmd/index.html

The Musk family in Luhansk, Ukraine: a nightmare scenario for a family in the midst of the Ukrainian shelling during the war

These spaces have become quite professional, with furniture, heat, lighting and reliable internet, provided through Starlink terminals, bought from the company owned by Elon Musk.

They helped a family that had fled the frontlines during the war. The mother had given birth in the midst of Russian shelling of their hometown of Kreminna in eastern Luhansk region. When the family settled in a Kyiv suburb, Oleg and Kateryna helped them out with warm clothes and food.

Kateryna and her husband Oleg have a small generator at their home, but they rarely use it. There is always a chance that it will run out of diesel to power it and that it needs to cool down every four hours. They said they had to choose between lights or laundry.

Kateryna says she has enough food in the stores but sometimes needs to use a flashlight. They keep a couple of months worth of food supplies in case the situation gets more dire.

“I have a job here; Oleg has a job here and he cannot work remotely. Our home is where we have many friends. For me it’s a nightmare to move somewhere else,” Kateryna said.

“The company my husband works for has a fund and they help the Ukrainian fighters who are on the front line with equipment like drones and pick-up trucks. We helped collect money for such equipment,” she said.

Her one concern – beyond giving birth to healthy children – is that she might find herself lying in the hospital amid another wave of missile attacks. She said she would pray very hard at that point.

An elderly woman walking through a mud-soaked street, fires, or bombs: The story of the Siversk neighborhood in eastern Ukraine

Every few minutes the ground shakes as blasts echo through the battered streets of Siversk, in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk region. Sometimes it’s outgoing Ukrainian fire, sometimes the Russians firing back.

An elderly woman in black pants, shoes, and a gray overcoat is walking down the street. There is an explosion that rings out. She flinches, her eyes open wide, but she doesn’t miss a step. She joins a crowd of several dozen, mostly elderly residents bundled up against the cold.

The roads are covered with mud and rubble from incoming rounds. Vehicles have to navigate around craters where bombs were dropped. The upper floors of some apartment blocks have been reduced to rubble and barely a window on the street is intact. Telephone and electrical wires snake along the ground, long dead.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/08/europe/ukraine-siversk-postal-service-pensions-intl-cmd/index.html

The look of Lubov Bilenko at the village of Siversk during the earliest stages of World War II. The head of the mobile unit

On the edge of the crowd, standing alone, is 72-year-old Lubov Bilenko. Her face is flat, devoid of emotion, her dark eyes without expression – the thousand-mile stare.

“Of course, we were very scared before,” she says in a low voice. “Now we’re used to it,” she says of the shelling. “We don’t even pay attention anymore.”

Bilenko told CNN that she went out of her apartment and went to the main road in town to collect her monthly pension. The pension of Bilenko is close to the poverty line of $80 a month. It’s enough to buy food from a shop that’s still open.

Anna Fesenko is the head of the mobile unit. As she and her colleagues check documents against a list of recipients and hand out cash, Anna coaxes a smile and an occasional chuckle from weary town residents.

Bakhmut is 22 miles south of Siversk and was the post office where Fesenko worked before heading the mobile unit. But in mid-fall the fighting around the town became so intense that she and her colleagues there had to evacuate.

She understands that her job isn’t just to give out pensions, it’s to remind the people in Siversk they have not been forgotten. “I think we’re the only one connection between them and the rest of the world,” she says.

The 63-year-old Volodymyr had a cigarette before he joined the line and said that his wife was afraid to come here.

Olha has made it to the front. She has lived in the war zone where she has hunkered down in the basement of her apartment building. It’s a cramped, uncomfortable existence. Yet she is willing to put up with it.

The head of the Siversk military administration is Oleksi Vorobiov. He is worried that a lot of people are in the open.

Russian forces are just across a wide valley, occupying hills visible from the pension distribution point. They’re about 10 kilometers (six miles) to the north.

“We are trying to choose the right time and place,” Vorobiov says of the pension handout. It is a different place and time to avoid being targeted by the Russians when the mobile unit arrives.

Source: https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/08/europe/ukraine-siversk-postal-service-pensions-intl-cmd/index.html

A Remark on ‘The Black Hole and the Cosmic Microwave Background’, Part II, section 7: Introduction and Interactions

She and her colleagues did not pay much attention to the formalities. She said that they quickly handed out the cash to those still waiting.