One after the start of the war in Ukraine, some Russians are trying to oppose the dominant discourse, in a country where protest is strongly repressed or even impossible. franceinfo met a woman who helps Ukrainian refugees.
On February 24, it will be a year since Russia decided to invade Ukraine. A year since the war broke out and millions of Ukrainians are suffering the consequences in their daily lives. If in Russia, the majority of the population seems to support this war, or in any case continue to support the power, this is not the case for everyone. But expressing opposition to war is a crime that can land you in jail. And the surveillance, the repression, the censorship extinguished any dispute. Many Russians are therefore reduced to silence, isolated, and are not coping with the situation.
Let’s call her Yulia. In her forties, a well-known mother in her suburb of Moscow, Yulia is still shocked today, a year later, when she talks about the start of the war in Ukraine. “At first I didn’t get out of bed for three days. It was physically painful and I didn’t know what to do, she says. Then I went to demonstrate in the central square with a sign. It’s a small town, there were eight of us. A police car came, they looked and they left. And I realized that I was alone, that nobody cared.”
A few days later, Yulia, like hundreds of thousands of other Russians, wanted to pack her bags and flee her country. She was considering leaving for Mexico. “I have friends in America”, she explains. “But my husband came and said ‘where are you going? We have a mortgage, we have elderly parents here’.”
Help for Ukrainian refugees
Yulia and her husband cannot sell their apartment. The real estate market collapsed. She therefore decided that she would help the Ukrainian refugees who are arriving by the thousands in Russia. Some want to join Europe. Youlia speaks English, she helps them, but knows that some neighbors take a dim view of it. She fears being reported to the FSB, the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation.
“I live in constant fear that sooner or later they will come. Volunteers have already been summoned for interrogation. But I cannot be silent.”
“If you open my Facebook page, I can’t call the war a ‘special operation’, I’m not that kind of person.” On the wrist, Yulia wears two bracelets: one blue and one yellow, the colors of Ukraine. On her car there are two “No to war” stickers, she knows they can get her in trouble, but every now and then a motorist gives her a friendly wave. So Yulia remains hopeful that things will work out. “In my fridge, there are two bottles of champagne. The first for the death of who you know and the second for the end of the war.”
On Wednesdays Youlia runs a children’s club, she teaches them to speak English. It’s important to be open to other cultures, she explains.
The testimony of a Russian opposed to the war in Ukraine, collected by franceinfo
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