Foreign
Ukrainians in Russia Align With Moscow But Lament Refugee Camps
More than six million people have fled the war in Ukraine, the UN says
More than a million Ukrainians have sought shelter in Russia since the war began.
“We spent around two weeks hiding in the cellar. There was no water, heating or light. Outside, neo-Nazis were walking the streets, telling us this is all for our independence referendum in 2014 and we’ll all die here – the Russians will come and slaughter us all,” Tatyana recalled, of the early days of the battle for Mariupol.
While the Russian military is often blamed for the destruction of the city, Tatyana sees things rather differently.
By “neo-Nazis”, she had been referring to the Ukrainian soldiers and paramilitaries that Russian government officials consider far-right fighters.
“Since February 24, the Ukrainian side was bombarding the whole city. Until March 16, we didn’t see any Russian forces, only the Ukrainians patrolling our streets and setting up checkpoints, blocking the road. So even if you just went out to see your grandma, you couldn’t come back the same way because the whole road would be blocked.
“On March 16, our neighbour shouted to us that the Ukrainian positions had been broken through. We didn’t hesitate: my husband got in the car and we drove off.”
Tatyana, who asked Al Jazeera to withhold her full name and other personal details, now lives in Moscow with distant relatives and is searching for a job.
By the end of May, Russia’s war on Ukraine had displaced more than six million from their homes, according to the UN. Most headed west – with 3.5 million taking shelter in Poland alone.
However, less attention is paid to the refugees heading east, to Russia.
According to the Ministry of Emergency Situations, more than 1.5 million Ukrainian refugees have arrived in the Russian Federation since February. And many have a very different perspective on the conflict to those interviewed by Western media.
The first wave arrived just before the war began on February 24, when the pro-Russian rebels of the so-called Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics (DPR and LPR) in eastern Ukraine announced the evacuation of all women and children from the area before an imminent Ukrainian attack. Men of fighting age were kept behind for mobilisation.
‘An awful day’
Lyubov Gerasimenko, 38, is from Ilovaisk in the region of Donetsk, where a fierce conflict was fought between Ukrainian and pro-Russian forces in 2014.
“It was an awful day which I’ll remember for the rest of my life,” she said. “[When the battle began], me and my friend were riding the bus and could hear rumbling in the distance. When we got out, we heard our hometown was being bombarded by planes and missiles. We could see broken windows, wires hanging out, houses smoking in the distance. I rushed home and the kids were nowhere to be found. I realised they were at my father’s house hiding in the cellar, so I ran over there and that’s when a serious crossfire started from all sides.
“The power went out so we had to sit there with matches and candlelight. Then after 10 to 15 minutes of silence, we knew it was over so we could step outside, but as soon as we heard another blast, we all jumped back in the basement because we didn’t know where the next round would hit.”
After the battle, the town came under the control of the DPR.
On February 19 of this year, Lyubov and her younger children joined the evacuation to Russia, taking a train to the border and then onwards to Moscow.
On their arrival, refugees spend a short time in temporary tent accommodation at the border before being bussed across the nation.
Refugee shelters have been set up around the country, in boarding houses, hotels, and children’s summer camps.
There, they are provided with toiletries and clean clothes. Injured pets are seen by vets and children take classes in local schools.
But some of these refugees have complained about feeling stuck at the camps with only minimal help from the government.
“At first, we stayed with our relatives in Moscow, but it was very uncomfortable together and we were offered to stay at a refugee centre. The children needed to go to school and it all seemed to be organised there,” Lyubov told Al Jazeera.
“The conditions at the centre were not bad, but we couldn’t leave or go to work. Our friends and relatives weren’t allowed to visit us, and we couldn’t visit them as guests either. If we left, we had to be back by the evening or we’d be checked out. The camp was somewhere in the forest, so we’d have to walk half an hour through the woods to reach civilisation. We were fed, but the government didn’t [provide us with any money] for four months and we couldn’t work. The kids wanted to eat fruit, and we didn’t have any money. So in the end, I decided to leave and find a job.”
Svetlana Gannushkina, co-founder of Civic Assistance Committee, one of the organisations working with new arrivals, said, “People don’t have money. The promised 10,000 roubles [around $170] are only consistently being handed out in Rostov after a long bureaucratic procedure. Clearly, there wasn’t enough money in the budget to allocate everyone 10,000 roubles. Out of the thousand families we’ve seen, you could count the number who’ve actually been paid on one hand.”
Her organisation has been blacklisted by Russian authorities as a “foreign agent”.
“At the temporary accommodation centres they’re given food and shelter, but a person can’t live without money. That’s their main request to us – please give us something! At first we gave away 5,000 roubles at a time, and you can imagine what it is for a small organisation such as ours to give everyone 5,000 roubles. Our money disappears in a flash.”
Meanwhile, the Russian government has been accused of forcibly relocating civilians from occupied Ukrainian territories, resettling them in remote areas of Russia or using them to film propaganda videos. However, Gannushkina, who has signed an open letter condemning Russia’s military aggression, said she has not encountered cases of people taken against their will.
“I don’t know of any such cases where someone was taken by force, but refugees don’t have a choice,” she said. “Picture yourself sitting in a basement, there’s bombs falling outside, you don’t know what’s happening, the hatch opens and some soldiers tell you there’s a bus, get on board. What would you say? No?”
“But it should be said, many of them wanted to reach Russia – not only from the Donbas but other Russian-speaking areas of Ukraine, as well – but that’s not for me to discuss.”
‘Filtration procedure’
There are still many Ukrainians, including Tatyana, who share the Kremlin’s anger at what they see as discrimination against Russian-speakers in Ukraine and the alleged role of the West in igniting the conflict.
“There were some complaints about me at work serving customers in Russian. I can speak Ukrainian, but I don’t like it. I was told I have to speak only in Ukrainian,” she said.
“The European governments did this to our city. They are responsible because they supplied the weapons, and because they humiliated us and the Donetsk region for eight years.”
What is certain is that Ukrainian refugees have to pass an opaque “filtration” process. At border crossings, witnesses have reported being interrogated, having their fingerprints taken and the contents of their mobile phones and electronics checked, while soldiers hold onto their passports.
Although most are quickly released, it remains unclear what happens to those who are not.
“The filtration procedure varies, depending where you are,” said Gannushkina.
“We’ve had families who were questioned for 15 to 20 minutes and everyone got through, and then there were times where they were held for five or six hours, stripped and checked for tattoos, and asked questions they couldn’t know the answers to. They’d ask about Ukrainian military positions – what would someone know hiding in the cellar? They don’t even know which direction they’re being fired upon.”
“But the most frightening thing is when someone doesn’t pass filtration. There was a huge Roma family of 36, and all of them passed except one. A young man of around 20 had something off with his passport. In the end, our volunteers managed to find him. But I had another group, three women and one man. The women passed, the man didn’t. When his sister asked the soldier what happens when you don’t pass filtration, [she said] the magnificent warrior replied, ‘I already shot 10, then I got bored and stopped counting.’”
While Gannushkina is often able to locate people through her contacts, in cases such as this, there is nothing she can do.
Al Jazeera was unable to independently verify what happened to the man.
For those who make it safely across, their thoughts remain with their relatives and friends left behind.
Lyubov’s elder sons, aged 18 and 20, were held back to be drafted by the separatists, but they have not yet been deployed to the front line.
“People are still dying there every day,” she said.
Dozens of Palestinians killed in overnight Israeli strikes in central and south Gaza as Red Sea tensions rise.
Here’s how things stand on Monday, January 15, 2024:
Latest updates and human impact
- Israeli attacks continue unabated overnight killing and wounding dozens of civilians in central and southern Gaza. At least 22 people were killed and a large number injured as a result of Israeli forces targeting al-Thalatheni Street in the central Gaza Strip.
- Yemen’s Houthi rebels fired an antiship cruise missile toward an American destroyer in the Red Sea, which was shot down by a US fighter jet, announced US Central Command (CENTCOM) on X.
- This was the first US-acknowledged Houthi attack since the US strikes on Yemen on Friday.
- Hamas released a 37-second video showing three Israeli captives held in Gaza on Sunday, saying they would reveal the fate of the captives on Monday and urging the Israeli government to stop the offensive.
- The Israeli military says it has shifted to a new phase of the war focused on the southern end of Gaza, where almost 2 million internally displaced Palestinians are running out of safe spaces to shelter.
- The Gaza Ministry of Health has said almost 24,000 people have been killed in the Israeli offensive. More than 60,000 people have been wounded in 100 days of war.
Diplomacy
- Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday that his country will pursue its war against Hamas until victory and will not be stopped by anyone, including the International Court of Justice (ICJ).
- The White House said on Sunday that “it’s the right time” for Israel to scale back its military offensive in the Gaza Strip.
- Egypt’s State Information Service (SIS) said in a statement on Sunday that one of the biggest obstacles to the timely delivery of sufficient aid to Gaza was Israeli inspection of the aid. The statement came after Israel blamed Cairo for the delay in aid delivery to Gaza during its defence at the ICJ.
- US Secretary of State Antony Blinken posted on X on Monday, calling for the release of the remaining captives held in Gaza on the 100th day since they were taken by Hamas. He did not mention the Palestinian casualties.
- Australia’s Foreign Minister Penny Wong, who described herself as a “friend of Israel” to the press, will travel to Jordan, Israel, the occupied Palestinian Territories and the United Arab Emirates this week, her office said on Monday.
West Bank raids and violence
- Israeli forces arrested 25 students staging a sit-in in protest against high tuition fees at An-Najah University in Nablus. Al Jazeera’s Hamdah Salhut reported that the protesting students received a text message from Israeli forces telling them to “surrender now”.
- Israeli forces have reportedly raided the family home of Nael al-Barghouti, the longest-serving Palestinian prisoner, in the village of Kobar, in Ramallah, in the occupied West Bank.
- The Israeli army said on Friday that it killed three Palestinian men who infiltrated a West Bank settlement and fired upon soldiers.
- The Israeli military killed two Palestinians after accusing them of ramming their car through a checkpoint near Hebron.
- Local sources reported that Israeli forces bulldozed two Palestinian-owned houses during a Sunday midnight raid in the city of Qalqilya, Palestinian news agency Wafa reported.
- Armed Israeli settlers broke into the village of Burin, south of Nablus, and attacked Palestinian residents’ houses and properties after midnight on Sunday, Wafa reported.
- “Violent raids and arrests have become part of the fabric of daily life in the occupied West Bank,” Al Jazeera’s Mohammed Jamjoom, reporting from Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, said. At least 347 Palestinians have been killed and thousands have been arrested since October 7.
Flames and smoke billow during Israeli attacks against Gaza on October 9, 2023
Human Rights Watch terms Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant’s call for a ‘complete siege’ on Gaza a ‘war crime’.
The Hamas movement has threatened to kill an Israeli hostage every time Israel bombs a Palestinian home without warning as Israel mobilised some 300,000 reservists and imposed a total blockade of the Gaza Strip, denying the enclave’s millions of residents access to food, water and fuel.
The warning from Hamas came on Monday as the death toll from the armed group’s surprise weekend attack climbed to 900 in Israel and revenge attacks by Israeli forces on the besieged Gaza Strip killed more than 700 people and left some 3,700 others wounded.
Residential apartment blocks, hospitals, schools and a mosque have been among the sites attacked by Israeli fighter jets, artillery and drones, according to media reports and witnesses.
Hamas spokesperson Abu Ubaida issued the threat to kill Israelis from the dozens held captive by the armed group. He said an Israeli hostage would be killed for every Israeli bombing of a civilian house without warning.
Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen said more than 100 people were taken captive by Hamas during the deadly cross-border incursion over the weekend.
As Israeli forces conducted intense retaliatory attacks on Gaza on Monday, Israel’s Defence Minister Yoav Gallant drew international condemnation by announcing a total blockade of the densely populated and besieged enclave, which is home to 2.3 million people.
Gallant said Israel would impose a “complete siege” on Gaza. “No electricity, no food, no water, no gas – it’s all closed.”
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said he was “deeply distressed” by the siege announcement and warned that Gaza’s already dire humanitarian situation will now “only deteriorate exponentially”.
Guterres also said some 137,000 people were taking shelter with the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) at schools across Gaza.
UNRWA said on Tuesday that almost 190,000 people have been displaced in Gaza amid the Israeli attacks and the figure is expected to grow further as the violence intensifies.
Nearly half a million people have also not received food rations this week in Gaza as UN food distribution centres have been forced to remain closed amid the Israeli onslaught, UNRWA said.
Human Rights Watch said Israel’s total blockade on the necessities of life for everyday people in Gaza was a war crime.
“Defense Minister Gallant’s statements are abhorrent,” Omar Shakir, Israel and Palestine director at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement.
“Depriving the population in an occupied territory of food and electricity is collective punishment, which is a war crime, as is using starvation as a weapon of war. The International Criminal Court should take note of this call to commit a war crime,” he said.
Abhorrent. This is a call to commit a war crime by @yoavgallant. The @IntlCrimCourt should take note.
Quote by @OmarSShakir ⤵️ https://t.co/kKVo6YtpI1 pic.twitter.com/neHQMwnXVn
— Human Rights Watch (@hrw) October 9, 2023
Shakir also condemned the threat by Hamas to kill hostages, warning that such action was also a war crime.
“All hostages should be safely released to their families,” he said.
Grotesque. These threatened acts would amount to flagrant war crimes by Hamas’ armed wing. The @IntlCrimCourt will be watching.
Quote from @OmarSShakir ⤵️ https://t.co/FuNtvHe0YG pic.twitter.com/6cnHODLWyZ
— Human Rights Watch (@hrw) October 9, 2023
On the diplomatic front, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi and his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan called on Hamas and Israel to immediately end violence and protect civilians, the Egyptian presidency said.
Erdogan urged Israel against “indiscriminately” attacking civilians and delivered measured criticism of Hamas, urging both sides to respect the “ethics” of war.
The United Kingdom, French, German, Italian and US governments issued a joint statement on Monday recognising the “legitimate aspirations” of the Palestinian people and supporting equal measures of justice and freedom for Israelis and Palestinians alike.
But the prospect that fighting could spread also alarmed the region and the world.
Lebanese armed group Hezbollah fired rockets into northern Israel in response to at least three of its members being killed in Israeli shelling of Lebanon.
Israel said one of its deputy commanders was also killed in an earlier cross-border raid from Lebanon.
US President Joe Biden holds a bilateral meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the sidelines of the 78th United Nations General Assembly in New York City, the US, September 20, 2023
Social media users, including journalists and observers, are calling out what they call a ‘double standard’.
After Saturday’s surprise attack by the Palestinian group Hamas on Israel, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy took to the social media platform X to offer “condolences go out to everyone who lost relatives or close ones in the terrorist attack”.
He also stated, “Israel’s right to self-defence is unquestionable.”
Many world leaders, including US President Joe Biden and UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, shared similar sentiments.
The world is seeing appalling images.
Thousands of rockets raining down on Israeli cities. Hamas terrorists killing not only Israeli soldiers, but civilians on the streets and in their homes.
It’s unconscionable. Israel has a right to defend itself – full stop.
— President Biden (@POTUS) October 7, 2023
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen stated, “Israel has the right to defend itself – today and in the days to come. The European Union stands with Israel.”
Accusations of Western ‘double standards’
Some social media users have criticised these statements, saying they highlight a double standard.
The world is seeing appalling images.
Thousands of rockets raining down on Israeli cities. Hamas terrorists killing not only Israeli soldiers, but civilians on the streets and in their homes.
It’s unconscionable. Israel has a right to defend itself – full stop.
— President Biden (@POTUS) October 7, 2023
Ukraine’s right to defend itself is praised by most international leaders while Russia’s invasion is condemned, but commentators said the same cannot be said about Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza.
Aaron Bastani, a leftist British journalist, said on X that there’s a “clear double standard in endorsing terrorism against civilian targets in Ukraine … and condemning it by Palestinians”.
Many users said Western diplomats and media support the Ukrainians who defend their land, but label the Palestinians fighting against Israel as “terrorists”.
https://twitter.com/KhaledBeydoun/status/1710787817415082349?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1710787817415082349%7Ctwgr%5E6acf829869e993177f32aa38aa48c02f38cb7f61%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.aljazeera.com%2Fnews%2F2023%2F10%2F9%2Fwestern-leaders-accused-of-hypocrisy-over-response-to-palestine-ukraine
An illustration of a woman’s face, in which one eye is closed beside a Palestinian flag, and one eye open beside a Ukrainian flag, has been regularly shared as a symbol of the West’s alleged double standards in how the two conflicts are viewed.
https://twitter.com/OnlinePalEng/status/1710994682883273172?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1710994682883273172%7Ctwgr%5E6acf829869e993177f32aa38aa48c02f38cb7f61%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.aljazeera.com%2Fnews%2F2023%2F10%2F9%2Fwestern-leaders-accused-of-hypocrisy-over-response-to-palestine-ukraine
Clips also emerged on social media from a CNN interview with Mustafa Barghouti, the general secretary of the Palestinian National Initiative, in which he posed the rhetorical question, “Why does the United States support Ukraine in fighting occupation – while here they support the occupier, who continues to occupy us?”
The hypocrisy and double standards of western governments and media platforms dealing with situations in Ukraine-Russia and Palestine-Israel blow the mind. Absolute disgrace.
— Said Yacoubi (@AlyacoubiSaid) October 8, 2023
It is not the first time Western nations have been accused of double standards in their stance on the Ukraine war.
Earlier in the year, Amnesty International published a report highlighting the West’s “double standards” on global human rights.
Agnes Callamard, Amnesty’s secretary-general, told Al Jazeera at the time that the occupation of Palestinian territory was a “particularly important one”.
“Without making any comparison between Russia’s aggression and Israel … it is clear the Palestinian people are under a regime of oppression – a regime of occupation and a regime of apartheid,” Callamard told Al Jazeera.
Over the last three days, X users recirculated earlier statements calling out what they called Western hypocrisy, sharing video by the Irish lawmaker Richard Boyd Barrett from March 2022 in which he berated the Irish government’s double standards regarding Ukraine and Palestine:
“You’re happy to use the most strong and robust language to describe the crimes against humanity of [Russian President] Vladimir Putin, but you will not use the same strength of language when it comes to describing Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians.”
Barrett on Sunday again called out what he described as “shocking double standards of Western leaders supporting Ukraine resistance but condemning Palestinian[s].”
Meanwhile, others warned against comparing conflicts.
https://twitter.com/denfordauthor/status/1710993737738768607?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1710993737738768607%7Ctwgr%5E6acf829869e993177f32aa38aa48c02f38cb7f61%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.aljazeera.com%2Fnews%2F2023%2F10%2F9%2Fwestern-leaders-accused-of-hypocrisy-over-response-to-palestine-ukraine
And some cautioned that Hamas and the Palestinians should not be seen as one and the same.
Just to clarify:
Palestine did not mount an attack on Israel. An Iranian proxy militia did. Palestinians are by and large huddled in their homes praying that an Israeli airstrike won't kill them or theirs. Hamas is the culprit here. This isn't a decentralized grassroots thing.
— Romeo Kokriatski (@VagrantJourno) October 9, 2023
Ukrainian footballer Oleksandr Zinchenko, who plays for Arsenal, posted on Instagram, stating he “stands with Israel”.
Zinchenko has been a vocal supporter of his home country in its ongoing defence against Russia, and he participated in a Game4Ukraine charity match in London earlier this year to raise money for Ukraine.
After online backlash, with some questioning an alleged double standard in his support of Israel, the footballer removed the post and switched his social media account to private.
Several people claimed that Zinchenko’s football club, in not responding to his comments, was guilty of hypocrisy after they had distanced themselves from former player Mesut Ozil’s comments in 2019 over alleged human rights abuses against Uighur Muslims in China.
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