In Moscow, volunteers are organising to help people displaced by the Ukrainian incursion into the border region of Kursk, with donations being used to help a state that is sometimes seen as failing.
Plastic bags pile up in the collection center: clothes, sleeping bags, baby food, hygiene products, toys, pet supplies… Outside, on the sidewalk, a handwritten sign: “Humanitarian aid for the Kursk collection center.”
At the origin of this citizen mobilization are the parties of Ekaterina Dountsova and Boris Nadejdine, two Russians who tried to take part in the presidential election in March on pro-peace programs, but whose candidacies were rejected.
“It’s not about politics, it’s about human life,” Ekaterina Dobrinina, a 22-year-old volunteer, told AFP.
“Frankly, I don’t care what kind of person I help. The important thing is that I help them and that they get through it,” adds the activist of the “Youth of Dawn” movement, M’s party.me Dountsova.
Ukraine, which has been trying to repel a Russian offensive against its territory since February 2022, launched an armed incursion of unprecedented scale in the Russian border region of Kursk on August 6.
Some 121,000 people have been evacuated from Russia’s Kursk region, which borders Ukraine, acting governor Alexei Smirnov said on Monday.
The evacuation order was extended on Monday to the Kursk region itself and also to a district in the neighboring Belgorod region.
The collection center opened this Saturday in a relatively central area of the Russian capital.
Aided by social media and appeals from Russian rap star Noize MC, volunteers say they received dozens of donations in the space of two days.
The State pointed out
A 28-year-old midwife, Daria Chistopolskaya, came to drop off toys that she would otherwise have given to relatives or stored in the family dacha.
“The state does not care enough about these people and people themselves should help each other in such situations,” she says.
Beside him, his son says goodbye to his green stuffed dinosaur, which he hands over to the volunteers.
“I think the civilians who were affected […] “They are not getting enough help,” laments Kirill Borzov, an IT worker who came to deliver baby food. “Whatever I can do to help, I’m trying to do today.”
Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin, however, assured on Monday that he wanted to provide “maximum support”, announcing aid of around 18 million euros for displaced people who have lost their homes.
Ivan, a 31-year-old lawyer, brought him T-shirts, a shirt, a pair of pants and a pair of sneakers “in good condition,” he said, that “someone could use.”
“Our compatriots are suffering,” he said. “In times like this, we must show solidarity.”
Once sorted, the donations are sent to Voronezh, a city some 200 kilometers east of the city of Kursk, from where they are redistributed to people in need, explains Ekaterina Dobrinina.
“We help people first and foremost. Not the passport, not the religious affiliation, but the people themselves,” she says. “It’s important that people leave these dangerous places or live there as comfortably as possible.”