In March, the Russian occupiers forcibly deported civilians from Kyiv to Belarus. They said this was a rescue operation. In fact, this is deportation and another Russian war crime

1

Maksym Byshok is 34 years old, he heads the sports academy Akademiia Sportu in Bucha. Russians lived here in March, but the building itself, although damaged inside, has survived and now operates both as a humanitarian headquarters and as an academy. Maksym is proud of it and says that itʼs one of the best such establishments in Ukraine, it already holds tournaments here and calculates losses caused by war.

We communicate with Maksym on the territory of the academy. Tall, dark-skinned and lightly unshaved, he speaks briskly and you immediately sympathize him. In the courtyard of the academy, the war reminds of itself with traces of an armored personnel carrier on the lawn and a broken tree, which gardeners tied to its neighbor to save. Only one light-noise grenade with a certificate issued in Pskov was found on the complex territory — it was included in the general investigation of Russian crimes in Ukraine.

Maksymʼs family could testify to another crime. It is still difficult for his elderly parents to tell what they went through, so Maksym tells their story:

— My parents lived in a military town in Gostomel. I was driving my car under helicopters, I wanted to pick them up on February 24, but they refused to leave because it was their house and a warm basement. And two days later there was a direct hit in our house and it fell apart into two parts.

Maksymʼs parents went to the basement of a nearby dormitory. They say, 85 people were hiding there. First, the Kadyrovites entered the village, then the Belarusian military — they were recognized by specific pronunciation. Then the Russian Army came. On February 26, the occupiers confiscated the coupleʼs phones, and Maksym lost contact with his parents.

They sat in the cold basement for several weeks. During this time, his father began to have problems with his legs — he even started walking with a stick. On March 16, the Russian military came to the basement: they said that heavy artillery shelling was planned for tomorrow, and offered to take the locals to Belarus, where they would be taken away by the Red Cross. Maksymʼs mother was worried about whether they would get to the real Red Cross, but she was even more worried about her husbandʼs health.

On the morning of March 17, the Russian military took 40 people from the basement and drove 150 kilometers to the border with Belarus for seven hours, taking pauses during periods of active fighting. People were brought to the border near Ovruch, where there was no crossing point, and illegally handed over to the Belarusian Red Cross. They made a census and near 1 a.m. took people to the sanatorium Zolotyie Peski near Gomel.

— My acquaintance, who was there with her parents, managed to take a netbook, — says Maksym. — She found Wi-Fi and wrote on the first night that they are alive and in Belarus.

On the night of March 17-18, after receiving a message from an acquaintance, Maksym wrote to Mykhailyna Skoryk, then an adviser and now deputy mayor of Bucha. She immediately sent him a dozen Belarusian phone numbers of various volunteers, and in the morning Maksym began to call everyone. Only two numbers were working: they said that there were no parents on the lists brought to Belarus. However, later Maksym found confirmation that his parents were in Belarus. Calls to the Kyiv Red Cross were unsuccessful — they said that as they did not carry out any evacuation, he should call their Belarusian counterparts. And didnʼt even provide their contacts.

The sanatorium near Gomel, which housed the deported people, was comfortable, says Maksym — with double rooms, regular meals, air conditioning, and medical care. The day before, a column from Borodyanka arrived there — up to half a hundred people.

In the morning, four film crews of Belarusian TV channels arrived at the sanatorium. Ukrainians were asked where they came from and who they considered to be — refugees or asylum seekers. The right option — deportees — did not sound. Maksymʼs parents refused to answer, but their acquaintance gave an interview and said that she was saved from the Ukrainians and will go to relatives in the Russian city Rostov-on-Don.

In the evening, a representative office of the Gomel Red Cross arrived with a warning that it is possible to live in a sanatorium, but it is better to go to Poland or Russia. Maksymʼs parents chose the first option. He found a volunteer in Gomel who went to the train station with his mother and bought tickets in his own name with his own money. She couldnʼt do this on her own — neither she nor her husband had foreign passports as well as documents about crossing the border.

The couple went to Brest, a city in Belarus near Polish border, where they entered Poland. After explaining where they were coming from, the border guards had no questions. They lived in Poland until May 18 with their daughter, who had left Ukraine earlier.

— Theyʼre still recovering from that, — Maksym says. — My mother called from Poland and asked if we already had rubles — they thought the Russians had taken Kyiv.

Maksymʼs parents and daughter returned from Poland and now live in the village with her. All the people who remained in the basement from which the couple was deported to Belarus survived.

— My mother understood that it was abnormal to leave like that, but they had no choice, — says Maksym. — If they were taken to Russia, it would be a completely different level of problems, and so everything is fine. The main thing is that they are alive.

2

"The main thing is that they are alive," the same words were told to Maksymʼs parents by the police when they told about what happened. According to the man, the local authorities in Gostomel donʼt know what to do with those deported to Belarus. Maksym hopes that his parents will still write a statement about the illegal removal after they recover.

Taras Dumenko, head of the Gostomel Military-Civil Administration, declined to comment on questions about those deported to Belarus, citing the ongoing investigation.

— Are people in the community informed that it was a crime, and is it worth declaring it? — I ask him.

— Appealing to law enforcement agencies was and is voluntary. Well, if a person has no desire to write a statement, then law enforcement agencies must establish why itʼs hiding crimes made on our territory.

Valeriia Melnyk, a prosecutor with the Department for Crimes Committed in Armed Conflict and the Office of the Prosecutor General, told Babel that such Russian actions violated international humanitarian law. Law enforcement and the Prosecutor Generalʼs Office have launched more than 20 criminal proceedings in these cases in several regions of Ukraine, including Kyiv.

For example, about a hundred people were deported from Borodyanka to Gomel on March 11, and another 83 from Gostomel in a week. It is still impossible to establish the exact number of people taken out of Kyiv Oblast. In any case, this is part of the mass deportation of Ukrainian men and women, albeit under the guise of evacuation.

Regarding prosecution, Valeriia Melnyk notes that in the case of the Belarusian Red Cross, we can talk about punishment for individual employees, not the whole organization.

Babel asked the Gomel branch of the Belarusian Red Cross for comment. We did not receive an answer to the question of how the "aid" to Ukrainian men and women was organized, as well as to the question of whether the Belarusian Red Cross is aware of its taking part in the crime. The International Committee of the Red Cross did not comment either.

3

Gulnara was also taken from Gostomel, from another basement. It happened on March 19.

— On March 15, the Russian military came, introduced himself as Sergei, and said that there would be an evacuation, — says Gulnara. We talk to her on the phone. — He said that it is necessary to gather 20 people. Older people, women, and a family with a small child agreed.

The first group in two paddy wagons left on March 17. People thought that everyone was being deported to Russia, so the next time the same military man came and said that people were being deported to Belarus, Gulnara and her husband also agreed for the “evacuation”.

— He said I needed to gather at least 20 people for tomorrow, — she recalls. — He said that he is kind to us. And when they say we could have refused… I could have refused, but he is standing in front of me with a machine gun and saying I have to leave. In such a situation itʼs better to leave.

25 people volunteered to leave. They were also taken away in paddy wagons accompanied by an armored personnel carrier. A "checkpoint" was set up near the Belarusian town of Komarin — only Belarusian border guards were there. People were dropped off, their passports confiscated and taken a few kilometers to the Red Cross base, where they were fed and given phones to call relatives. The documents were returned in an hour, and in a few hours the bus took them to the Mashinostroitelny sanatorium. There, people were issued "vacationerʼs cards" — possibly to legalize the deportation. Gulnara and her husband spent more than a month in the sanatorium.

— We were well received, — she says, — we were called "guests from Ukraine". Volunteers are very kind, they brought medicine. Some went to Poland, some to Russia, but my husband and I only wanted to go to Ukraine and wait for the war to end. But the war is going on, and we need to go somewhere.

Gulnara says she befriended the sanatorium staff. Those in need were treated. Gulnara has only fond memories of the sanatorium, although she says that they were brought there by "enemies", ie Russian soldiers, and she and others were taken prisoner.

Gulnara did not communicate with Belarusian journalists. The deportees were also visited by the migration service, who asked who had plans. Gulnara and her husband decided to go only to Ukraine. And at least two women left for Russia and generally had anti-Ukrainian beliefs.

In April, Anzhela, a spokeswoman for the Belarusian Red Cross, said that everyone should leave the sanatorium — either find a job and get a room in a dormitory, or look for housing on their own. On April 25, a woman came and said that the next morning Ukrainians were being deported from Belarus. They brought them to Novaya Guta and let them go to Ukraine on foot.

— We walked a mile and a half under the rain, but we were happy, — says Gulnara. — We were met by the [Ukrainian] Armed Forces, we gave them passports, we were checked, we talked calmly. They said “Glory to Ukraine! Glory to the heroes!" And hugged us.

Gulnara and her husband were taken to Ripky, where Security Service officers were still communicating with them, and from there to Chernihiv, Kyiv, and finally to Irpin. At that time, leaflets were distributed about her in Gostomel, saying that she was a collaborator.

— But thatʼs not true, — she says. — I talked to the Russians in a good way so as not to have problems. It is also important to negotiate. I have already written a statement to the police that unknown people are spreading these lies.

But Gulnara did not write a statement about forced deportation to Belarus. After my question she thought:

— Maybe all of us who were in the basement, should get together and write together? We seemed to be prisoners, but I am honestly glad that we were taken away and we escaped.

4

Although there is not much evidence of staying in Belarusian sanatorium camps, some of them contradict Gulnaraʼs cloudless memories. For example, in the Chonky sanatorium, the administration called the deportees traitors to Ukraine, and the Red Cross spread misinformation that men would not be released from Belarus to Poland. The man who managed to get to the camp in search of his son, claims that at least one of the three had terrible conditions and people had their documents confiscated.

Danylo Popkov, a lawyer with Vostok SOS, explains that even with a "good attitude" such “evacuation” is a crime. According to Ukrainian law, there can be two components of a crime — imprisonment or violation of the customs of war. In fact, the latter is directly related to international humanitarian law. Deportation is a violation of its norms.

— When a person did not plan to go anywhere, and someone comes to him with a weapon, it is difficult to call the consent to the deportation voluntary, — explains the lawyer. — Even if a person is persuaded that it will save him and he does not see this as coercion, the deportation can still be described as such.

5

Hryhoriy Ovadenko is 85 years old. He lived in Borodyanka with his wife Oleksandra and on February 24 persuaded his daughter and children to stay with them, because the town was quiet. But they still went from Bucha to Transcarpathia.

Three days later, Hryhoriy and Oleksandra spent the night in the basement for the first time — a column of Russian vehicles was driving through the town. On March 1, when the airstrikes began, they were still in their apartment.

— We heard the plane buzzing, buzzing. Then came the whistle, and suddenly "goog!". We were thrown against the wall. All the windows in the rooms shattered, if we were there, we would die. There are no windows in the corridor and the doors have been closed. There was only a small glass in the door, it also flew out. We were just thrown by the wave, — recalls Hryhoriy. — I put rugs over the broken glass in the door, and we lay down in the hallway. And again — the plane is buzzing. And again "gug!". My rugs flew, the door tore, everything exploded. They first destroyed the next house to ours [#429], then shot at our house with something, I think, from a tank. In the evening they shot the house №326, which is across the street from us.

In the early days, the Russians took two boys from the basement of their house. They detained, beat, mocked them — but still released afterwards.

Oleksandra, Hryhoriyʼs half-paralyzed wife, suffering from Parkinsonʼs disease, disappeared on March 6. The day she began to hallucinate, she and Hryhoriy were the only ones in the basement, so the man took the woman outside and returned to the basement for a bag of documents and medicine, and when he came out to the surface, his wife was gone:

— I struggled to pull her, she could not go, and then disappeared. I walked around, asking the Russians if they had seen a older woman with a stick. They said that no one was there.

Hryhoriy spent another week in the basement with his friend Tolik. When they looked out into the street, they saw that the women and the local volunteer were going to go to church, and they joined them. They spent two more days there. In an interview with Russian propaganda channels, local priest Viktor Talko said that in 2014 Borodyanka would meet the occupiers with flowers and that "the Ukrainian army has nazi congratulations." He told people that the only way to leave was to go to Belarus. Hryhoriy asked to stay in the church and wait for his wife, but the priest refused. He has allegedly already agreed with the occupational Borodyanka “commander" that he will take him to the Belarusian border.

After all, Hrygoriy had to leave. In total, 22 people were deported then.

They were met at the border by the Belarusian Red Cross and told that they would be stationed in Gomel. Then one of the guys previously beaten by the Russians became ill — he went outside and fellon the ground. Cardiopulmonary resuscitation did not help — he was buried in Belarus.

On March 19, the deportees were brought to the Zolotyie Peski sanatorium. Near the forest and the river — but as if in a well-kept prison with good food. There was nowhere to go, people had no money. It was possible to live there for a month, and then get a residence permit in Belarus. On all the questions of the deportees about their status the administration replied: "[Youʼre] protected". In the first days, Kyivstar mobile operator worked for Hryhoriy, so he got in touch with his family and told them what had happened. The granddaughter began to look for Oleksandr — "wrote in various chat groups on the Internet."

At the end of March, the director of the sanatorium became indignant that about a hundred deportees were taking their places, and the vouchers for recreation had already been sold. He called the Red Cross, the migration service and the employment center — they promised to find work for young people on the collective farm.

— And we ask, what about us, the old men? — recalls Hryhoriy. — And the old people, they answer, will be distributed by the Red Cross in boarding schools. Our grandmothers cried. They said the documents will be taken away and then we will not return home. Then we went to the director and cried: "Help us return to Ukraine."

The director said they could walk home on foot. Nevertheless, he agreed to the request and on April 1 sent elderly people together with Ivankiv Roma to Gomel by bus — a total of about 50 people. From there they took a train to Brest, tickets for which were brought by the Red Cross. This is how they crossed the border with Poland.

On April 26, Hryhoriy returned to Borodyanka and filed a complaint with the police about his wifeʼs disappearance. As his house was damaged, he moved to the village of Synyak in Kyiv Oblast.

— I planted potatoes, made beds for them. The daughter donated DNA to find the woman among the dead. The Security Service talked to me. They asked about the priest who was taken people to Belarus. I told them everything as I told you. Nobody forced us, but there was no choice. If we were taken to [neighboring] Zhytomyr Oblast, no one would go to Belarus. But we were given only one road, and we had to go. We could no longer sit in the basements. I froze my fingers — the skin peeled off. And I still canʼt feel my toes. I was in the basement for two weeks without changing clothes. Water froze there, and this is where we spent the night. For the interview that [priest] Victor gave to the Russians, I told the Security Service. He helped us, but Iʼm shocked by what he said.

6

Nataliia Zaretska is a military psychologist and currently a volunteer in the psychological service in Bucha. She is aware of cases of deportation to Belarus and works with their testimonies. Nataliia says that now present Belarus is not a place of detention, but a stop or sorting camp before deportation to Russia. But even she does not know exactly how many people were taken there. She has heard little about cases of deportees being released unhindered from Belarus. Such people may naturally not recognize the crime committed against them.

— I understand why these people say "the main thing is that they are alive", — says the psychologist. — Many people have not heard about the norms of international humanitarian law and cannot identify the crime. And a crime is not only when a person is killed. Man has other rights besides the right to live. People do not know that even during the occupation they have rights and the occupying power must ensure them. However, the person who was released from captivity understands that he or she was completely at the disposal of others, the worst hasnʼt happened — and she may even feel grateful that she was taken out and released, not killed. This is natural for such conditions.

Nataliia Zaretska says that people who survived the captivity should be accompanied according to the post-isolation protocol so that they can adapt to the new conditions. This technique allows a person to gradually get out of the state of tension that arises in a hostile environment, where people can only rely on themselves. It is also necessary to accompany theur relatives, even at the stage of finding prisoners. Without such support, a person can become even more immersed in what he or she had experienced, Zaretska emphasizes.

Translated from Ukrainian by Anton Semyzhenko.

Please help Babel do our work: donate in hryvnia 🔸 in cryptocurrency 🔸 via PayPal.