The Press in Russia | Attacked by Kyiv, Abandoned by the Kremlin

(Koursk) At dawn, exhausted and on edge, residents line up in front of the association La Maison des Bonnes Actions in the hope of receiving humanitarian aid. Formerly intended to provide aid to the homeless, the association is now struggling to support refugees from the Kursk region, who fled in the face of the Ukrainian advance. Around them, volunteers in yellow vests are busy, boxes in their arms.

“Now we are the homeless,” says Maria, 77, bitterly, leaning on her cane. “My son gave me three minutes to gather my things. Here I am, with my passport, having to beg. I only hope for one thing: that my house stays whole. Our dogs have probably already eaten all our chickens.” Her eyes fill with tears at the mere thought of everything she had to leave behind in her village, 40 kilometers from the border. Since then, the authorities have decided to order mandatory evacuations in several cities.

Clumsily, the women around her try to console her. Simple strangers from a few minutes ago, finding in misfortune a common language. “Our boys will quickly kick their asses, these barbarians have no place on our lands,” tries to reassure the old lady Nadejda, who plans to return home in two days. “Why do we have to suffer because of these bastards?” complains another, her lips trembling. “At least we are alive,” emphasizes, optimistically, a refugee in her forties.

The Kremlin’s Omerta

Indeed, not everyone has been so lucky.

On August 12, Alexei Smirnov, acting governor of the Kursk region, said that 12 civilians had been killed and more than 120 people injured as a result of the Ukrainian military’s attack in the region.

The Liza Alert search team reported 338 wanted notices on August 14, but has since stopped publishing its data. Similarly, at the request of the Prosecutor General’s Office, the Russian social network VKontakte blocked the public page “Sudja – search for people.”

To find her parents, Lyubov chose an old-fashioned method: sticking up wanted posters written on lemon-yellow sheets of paper all over Kursk. Since August 7, the young woman has been unable to contact them. “No evacuation was organized in Sudja, the head of the region just disappeared overnight, so the Kremlin remained silent. I asked the neighbor to go and get them, but the road into the city was no longer accessible, it was mined and the Ukrainians are shooting at all the cars approaching the city. So, maybe they couldn’t reach the evacuation buses in time or maybe my father just refused to leave his house,” speculates the redhead, who tries to put on a brave face in front of her children, despite her anxiety. “The store next door was destroyed. What are they going to drink? Eat?”

In the absence of answers from the authorities, the young woman tries to find them elsewhere. Since the publication of two reports from Soudja by the Ukrainian and then Italian television channels, she has been scrutinizing every detail in the hope of seeing her parents appear in the background, alive.

“The Kremlin makes me laugh when it claims to have reclaimed the city… it said the same thing two days ago! When I saw a Russian report where the Russian city Lgov was confused with the Ukrainian Lvov, I turned off the TV,” mocks Lyubov, who once worked as a journalist and then as a politician in the ruling party.

“I gave up my political career when Putin invaded Ukraine. I even had a breakdown at the time.” Despite her concern for her parents, she does not regret Kyiv’s move. “This is war, when you hit someone in the face, you should not be surprised if you get hit back.”

A war far from Moscow

A bomb scare interrupts the frivolity of four toddlers playing in a park. The little group runs to take refuge in their mother’s arms, crying, except for Sasha, who throws his little red plastic shovel in the air again and again, shouting “bomb poop!” Although a building was already destroyed by a Ukrainian missile a few days ago, this large family plans to stay in Kursk for the time being, for lack of a place to go.

Yet the city is emptying out every day before our eyes, the terraces seem empty for a sunny August. Evgeny has also sent his daughters and wife to Moscow. His job as a border guard forces him to stay in Kursk. “I was already sounding the alarm on the 1st^er August that the Ukrainian army was going to break through this border, but all the high-ranking officials preferred to turn a deaf ear. It was obvious! This border was held by kids [conscrits] and mobilized men, who spent their time drinking and fucking prostitutes,” the military man rages against Moscow. “In the capital, as long as they can continue to party, no one will worry about this war.”