stories

‘A crime against their own people’ A Sudzha resident on how the Russian authorities stood by silently as civilians fled the Ukrainian advance

Source: Holod

Over the past week, the Ukrainian army has captured dozens of settlements in Russia’s Kursk region, including the city of Sudzha. While regional authorities claim that thousands of civilians were evacuated, many locals say they were left to fend for themselves, with no information or assistance from officials. The independent media outlet Holod spoke with a Sudzha resident who escaped the city with her children about what it was like to flee under fire and whom she holds responsible for the situation. Meduza shares a translation of her story.

From the moment Putin declared the “special military operation” on February 24, 2022, I was already expecting the Ukrainian army to invade Russia. It was clear to me from the outset that the fighting would inevitably spill over onto our territory because wars are never confined to just one country. But many of my fellow citizens didn’t understand this; on online forums I’d often see comments saying things like, “We’re going to conquer everyone and take control.”

Two years ago, I watched as Russian troops rolled through our region and into Ukraine. I saw it all with my own eyes, and the whole time I was sure that the war would eventually come to us too. This year, the situation’s gotten worse in our region. Sudzha has repeatedly come under shelling from [Ukraine’s] Sumy region, and Ukrainian drones were constantly flying overhead.

On August 1, I took a screenshot from a [pro-war Telegram] channel called Two Majors. The post said that a large concentration of troops and equipment had been spotted on the Ukrainian–Russian border in the Sumy region. One could have drawn certain conclusions, but none of the local authorities so much as lifted a finger to protect or evacuate the population. I see this as a crime against their own people.

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At 3:00 a.m. on August 6, my kids and I woke up to the sounds of an air raid siren and missile alerts. Then another alarm sounded before the first one had even stopped. A few minutes later, we heard gunfire. The sirens themselves weren’t surprising; they’ve been going off all the time since January, ever since they were installed. But from the intensity of the shelling, I realized it was artillery laying the groundwork for an attack.

There weren’t any proper shelters in Sudzha at all. My building’s basement was listed as a shelter, but we don’t have a basement. My neighbors set up a shelter in the basement of a private house. During the shelling, we dragged some water and a few mattresses there. I had no illusions about the war ending well and was already prepared for the possibility that we might have to leave the city. That’s why I had a bag packed with documents, ready to go.

There wasn’t any official information from the authorities; neither the mayor’s office nor the regional administration provided any guidance on where to flee, where to evacuate, or who was responsible for getting people out of Sudzha. So, my kids and I also ran to the basement and hunkered down for several hours while the shelling continued. Grad and MLRS rockets were hitting and leveling houses right next to us.

If we had any hope at first that the shelling might soon end, it quickly faded. Just that night, we counted 97 explosions. Meanwhile, we didn’t hear any kind of response from the Russian forces. We stayed in the shelter until about lunchtime, and then I said: “Guys, some really angry men who’ve been itching to get in here for two years are about to show up and start tearing everything apart. So we need to leave.” I wouldn’t have made it through another night in the basement. If we hadn’t been able to get out by car, we would have left the city on foot.

The power and signal in the city went out right after the shelling began. Half an hour later, the water supply stopped as well. My neighbors and I just barely managed to get a signal and read that Ukrainian tanks were already in the [adjacent] village of Goncharovka. That’s when we realized we had to leave, or we’d be trapped in a besieged city.

We all had to get out of Sudzha on our own; there was no centralized evacuation, no announcements from the authorities. I don’t have my own car, so we left the city in two cars with our acquaintances, whom I’d persuaded to leave. As we drove through the city, we heard explosions and the sounds of fighting on the city’s outskirts. By then, the heavy shelling of the city had paused.

On the way out of Sudzha, we saw a drone attacking civilian cars. I saw two cars burning on the road. A drone also came at our car, which had three kids inside, and we sped away as fast as we could. I think there were also people in those burning cars. But in the city and on the way out, we didn’t see any military personnel — neither Russian nor Ukrainian.

Russian media outlets are writing that Ukrainian soldiers shot at a car with a pregnant woman, her husband, and their child inside. The man and the child survived, but she died in the hospital. Her body is still in the morgue in Sudzha: there’s no electricity, and her family can’t collect her body. I don’t want to accuse or justify anyone; I get that this is war. But still, a lot of drones targeted civilian cars.

We first fled to Kursk. But after a missile hit an apartment building, it became clear that staying there was also dangerous. So, my kids and I went to stay with relatives in another region, farther from the border. Now, for the first time in a long while, I’m enjoying the silence. I get the feeling that the locals don’t quite grasp the tragedy that happened to us. But even here, people are on edge and upset that no one from the authorities helped us.

‘Left to fend for themselves’

Most of the people I know managed to evacuate, but many of my colleagues stayed in the city, and now there’s no way to reach them. People have just been left to fend for themselves. In local social media groups, many people are searching for family members who didn’t make it out of the city. A lot of residents thought everything would be fine, but others didn’t have cars or a way to leave. They can’t stay in this situation for long. In Sudzha, there’s almost no water or food left; stores are empty, refrigerators don’t work, and food’s gone bad. It’s been dry, so even collecting rainwater is impossible. Some people might be surviving off their own gardens.

Volunteers are helping search for people who are still in the city and surrounding area, including children and the elderly. There are also animals left behind — like my cat, whom I didn’t have time to take with me. But how do you get them out? Both sides would need to agree on a humanitarian corridor for that. But to our authorities, an entire district in the Kursk region being destroyed is just an “incident” or a “provocation.” In reality, it’s a humanitarian disaster.

A lot of people are still stuck in Sudzha and the [surrounding] district, and they need to be evacuated somehow. Instead of the authorities, it was Father Yevgeny, a priest from the local Holy Trinity Church, who helped evacuate the city’s residents. Some people, after evacuating, even drove back to pick up family, but not everyone could make it into Sudzha: the road was mined, and there was artillery fire at the entrance.

Right now, it’s only volunteers who are providing humanitarian aid in Kursk. Many people fled [Sudzha] without food or belongings, and some even left without their documents. Volunteers are helping with supplies and food, as well as replacing documents and registering refugees. I was relatively lucky. The day before, I’d sorted my things and put them up in closets, and I had my documents and money ready to go. On August 6, during a pause in the shelling, I managed to run to my apartment and stuff some pants, dresses, and toothbrushes into a bag. Some people left with nothing at all.

The local authorities did nothing. They didn’t even warn us or inform us of the danger. And there are still many residents there, including bedridden elderly people and sick people, who could die from hunger if no one helps them. They’ve started evacuating people from neighboring areas now; after everything that’s happened, it would be foolish not to. But in our area, nothing was done to protect people: no shelters, no cover, no warnings. The alarm only went off when shells were flying toward Kursk. But while they were still landing near the train station, the all-clear signal was given.

‘Ukrainians have been going through this for years’

Everything was a complete mess; no one was prepared for Ukrainian forces to invade, even though the situation had been building up for over two years. The authorities have only just started organizing humanitarian aid, but it’s only for the refugees in temporary accommodation centers.

Many people consciously chose not to leave. They said: “Where am I supposed to go? I have work tomorrow. I have a house, a mortgage, a home under construction.” What construction? It’s over now; no one’s going to protect you. I think our local authorities were among the first to leave.

I’m not even holding out hope that anything is left of our house. I’ve already come to terms with the fact that we’re homeless now. The authorities are currently offering assistance for those who’ve suffered total property loss: 150,000 rubles [$1,683] per person. But what is 150,000 when an apartment in Kursk costs around three million [$33,661]? Even those who were affected by isolated strikes in Sudzha struggled to get compensation. If, for example, a window was shattered, you had to wait for a ton of paperwork, and then you’d get a set amount that might not even cover the repairs. And if you’d lost the receipt, you had to cover everything out of your own pocket.

I understand that we only experienced the full-scale war for one day. Ukrainian citizens have been going through the same thing for two and a half years. Many people in the border areas didn’t understand this. When the Russian military started shelling Sumy, people in local social media groups were thrilled. Some shouted, “Hit the pigs! Let’s show them! Go, Russia!” And then these same people were rushing to evacuate under the same conditions. Now everyone is scared, everyone is hurting. War is terrible. Some still say that if Moscow had known about the Ukrainian offensive, they wouldn’t have allowed it to happen. You know how it goes: “The Tsar is good, the boyars are bad.” But who appoints the boyars?

I want people abroad to understand that not everyone in the border regions is an “orc” or part of some wild tribe living in ignorance. There are also people here who have found this whole situation deeply repulsive from the start, and who wish there was more truth and justice in this country instead of all these lies. But what can we do now? We’ll have to suffer. The Kursk, Belgorod, and Bryansk regions are taking the hit for all of Russia, and not by choice.