I can count a five people I know personally who upped stumps and left Russia when mobilization was announced. Two were students of mine, they both returned by December and graduate soon. Two more are back once their companies told them they had to show up at the office or be fired. The other is working as a dishwasher in a German hotel - he’s a highly trained marketer but speaks little English and no German. Those few who remain outside the country, could well return soon if what my dear friend in Kiev tells me are correct.
Misha works in Ukraine’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. His son, Alyosha, is of military age and already served for 6 months as a communications specialist. While visiting a McDonalds last week he was bundled into one of four white Gaz vans with (he thinks) 20 other young men. They were driven to a barracks and told to change into uniforms. Alyosha protested that he’d finished serving in March. He was punched in the stomach and repeatedly kicked while lying on the ground. He, with 2 others, were lucky enough to have someone to rescue them. Before his phone was confiscated Alyosha managed to message Misha, who frantically spent two hours searching for his child. Misha messaged me on Telegram, Thursday, asking me to get his son out of Ukraine.
Misha and I first had contact in 2005 when a Ukrainian citizen was arrested in Split, Croatia. Via a mutual friend, my ex-colleague Ante Cicin-Sain who was then Honorary Irish Consul in Dalmatia, he asked if I could help. I drove down from Knin and visited the hospital where the woman was being treated. She’d been trafficked in via Moldova and arrested when she ran to local police for help. Her story was nothing unusual (I feel uneasy writing that). She’d met a girl she knew from school in a cafe in Ternopil. Stories of work, money and excitement in Europe hooked her. She was earning $75 per month as a receptionist in a hotel, the promise was $1000 a month doing the same job in Italy. She sold her Pentium 2 computer (that detail sticks with me) to a neighbour, other belongings at a flea market and handed the schoolmate $400 to organise the trip.
She went by bus with another girl to Balti in Moldova and was met by a young woman called Franka. Franka, who claimed to be from Italy, put them in a ‘taxi’ to Iași in Romania. She said her passport had been taken by the driver just before the border and she never saw it again. Four months had passed since she crossed the border from Moldova. Her tale of beatings, rape, forced prostitution, being passed along to a Bosnian-Croat gangster’s brothel in an out-of-season hotel near Split I’d seen/heard before. I sent Misha the details from the offices of Hajduk Split and after a few hours he phoned to say they’d organise a passport via the Embassy in Zagreb. At that moment the Ambassador, Viktor, was back in Kiev and Misha didn’t trust the officers to do the right thing. The passport arrived the next afternoon from Belgrade. Misha and I stayed in touch. We met in Moscow twice, in Kiev and Donetsk once each.
They locked up the local church here. Our priests were all for Zelensky and when war began, this in February, they led prayers for peace and took in whoever wanted help. Now they took away everything inside and told people to go to hell. I’m not religious, none in our family are, but this is too much.
The assault on the Orthodox Church in Ukraine didn’t begin last year, it has increased in violence and intensity. Burning down churches, after ransacking them, locking up priests, ankle tagging bishops - something all other faiths in Ukraine are terrified of as it could be them next. Islam was cracked down upon since 2007/8 and increased from 2014. Vladimir Zelensky promised to stop this and the Orthodox Church rowed in behind him. The historic Pechersk Lavra in Kiev hosted Zelensky during his election campaign with the church leader calling on believers to back this “man of peace”. 10000% Volodya had the intention of bringing peace. As soon as he tried to disarm neo-nazis they laughed in his face, on video, and told him where to go. Meanwhile he cracked down on media - this from current cheerleader outlet Kiev Independent.
The army, since 2007, has been purged of old officers who were friendly with Russians. After 2014, old guys were retired, new guys had trained in NATO countries. Our Ministry was cleansed two, three times. Since 2019, no, really 2020, so many are gone. Ones with contacts to Moscow, gone. Same with GUR (Intelligence Service), they were the same KGB guys, friends, some married to sisters, they kept things quiet. Now, they are blacked (blacklisted).
I passed on the contact of a lecturer who has rescued a number of kids from the front. His was one of many departments gutted by continual mobilizations (Misha says the latest count is 12) and through disaffected intelligence officials (whom he taught) can arrange passage into Russia. The head of the GUR, Kirill Budanov, bragged of killing Russians anywhere in the world, now he has disappeared. He’d taken credit for bombings and murders, putting Ukraine in a bad light. Rumours of him perishing in a blast shortly after he called any Russian fair game might well prove far fetched, as with the demise of Bandera believer and head of the Armed Forces Zaluzhny. Russia and Ukraine had tacit agreement not to take each other’s top brass. So there is that.
I can tell you, with full certainty. And I say this not lightly. There are men and women I know here, in our country, who will not let our land burn. I hear on BBC (World Service) of Russian patriots attacking Russia, ok, yes. I don’t hear what we all hear and know, who gives information to Russia on where to hit? Oh I hear, a selfie geolocates (reference to Arestovich and Khmelnitsky attack), shit. In our army and throughout, we have people who don’t want to have nuclear bullets (depleted uranium) or chemical weapons used by these insane people.
Misha calmed yesterday when Alyosha sent word via Telegram that he was safe and sound in Gomel, Belarus. He traveled through Chernobyl’s exclusion zone to get out of Ukraine and will be in Bryansk, Russia, Tuesday. He’ll stay there with friends for the Summer and will apply to continue his studies in Moscow. I stayed away from news since last week as I planned. I watched the China - Abu Dhabi showdown in Istanbul, cheered on West Ham and avoided the increasing tragedy in Ukraine. I was shown the drone attack on my former home in Russia (Voronezh) and prayed again for the end to this mess. There are people in Ukraine who see where this can end, like the top brass in Hitler’s Reich, the also don’t want the same to befall their homeland.