Translated material
You are not a refugee, you are not supposed to
For the past five years, Veronika Shcheglova (name changed at the request of the heroine) has lived in Moscow, four of them she studied at the Higher School of Economics. At the same time, Shcheglova did not adhere to pro-Russian views. For example, during the months-long Ukrainian protests of 2013-2014, she was a volunteer in the St. Michael's Cathedral in Kyiv: she fed the protesters there. And in the Moscow university, according to her, she entered because of "its good reputation in profile circles and a high place in the ranking of world universities." “For me, it was an opportunity to get a quality education, nothing more,” Shcheglova comments on her decision to move. “I basically didn’t get a residence permit in Russia, planning to return home – to Kharkov – after graduation.”
In June 2021, Veronika had to return to Kharkiv for family reasons, although she has not yet received a diploma, which she managed to defend. For him and the things remaining in the hostel, Shcheglova had to come to Russia again. But tourist trips were then limited due to covid, and Veronica finished her studies at the university. Therefore, she had to hide from the border guards the real purpose of the visit.
Air traffic between Ukraine and Russia has been suspended since 2015. Since March 27, 2020, entry into Russia through all checkpoints, except for airports, has been restricted due to the spread of the coronavirus. Because of this, even citizens from countries with a visa-free regime had to justify the purpose of the visit at the border. Restrictive measures for crossing the Russian border were lifted only on July 4, 2022.
So Veronika had problems with migration registration - she was afraid to leave the territory of Russia for a long time and remained there until the start of the war in Ukraine.
Shcheglova learned from her mother that Russia attacked Ukraine - a bomb fell 60 kilometers from their house in Kharkov. Then she decided to save money to pay off a potential fine for violating the rules for the stay of foreign citizens in Russia and leave for Europe. She did not want to stay for moral reasons, and it was dangerous to go home.
“ *An employee of the Estonian border service advised me to stay in Russia *”
On August 18, Estonia closed its borders to Russians with Schengen visas issued by Estonian consular offices — but the news did not bother Shcheglova, since she has a Ukrainian passport. On the night of August 21, she left Moscow for St. Petersburg. In the evening of the next day, she was already in Ivangorod. There, she suddenly discovered that her passport was missing. “It must have been stolen when I turned away from the bags,” Veronica suggests. Nevertheless, at the Russian checkpoint, the border guards studied Shcheglova’s documents and let her through on the ID card of a citizen of Ukraine (in Russia, the function of such a document is performed by an “internal” passport. - Note by Kholod ). They only warned that "there may be problems with the Estonians."
On the Estonian side of the border, Shcheglova showed her ID card again and filled out a form with questions about the timing and purpose of her stay in Russia. The same questions were repeatedly asked to her by Arnold Vaino, a border service officer who came out to see her. According to Veronika, the border guard behaved rudely with her: he poked her with his finger, then in the direction of Estonia, and then showed a cross with his hands and another gesture - “out”. Then Shcheglova was given a document banning entry (a copy is at the disposal of the editors. - approx. "Cold" ).
The document dated August 22, 2022 is called the entry ban. It was issued at the border at the Narva border checkpoint. It contains the name and surname of the heroine, as well as the surname and name of the officer who refused her entry. The paper confirms that Veronika Shcheglova is a citizen of Ukraine. Official reason for refusal: lack of a valid travel document. In the column "type of travel document" the ID-card is indicated.
The border guard also took her to a search and said: “If I find documents linking you to Russia — and I will find them — it will be even worse, and you can forget about the Schengen.” Such things were expectedly found: Shcheglova had a diploma from a Moscow university with him. After the search, she tried to call an organization helping Ukrainians whose number was listed on a poster on the wall. However, her phone quickly ran out of power, and Veronica decided to seek help from one of the border guards present. In response to her, according to her, they said: “But you are not a refugee, you are not supposed to call there.”
“Another employee of the Estonian border service advised me to stay in Russia - they say, I received a higher education and I can find a good job without any problems,” says Shcheglova. These words of hers only emphasized that we speak different languages with them. I can’t stay in Russia… My mother’s house continues to be bombed.”
“ *They can let in, and then deploy a person with an identical set of documents *”
In August, many volunteers helping Ukrainian refugees to leave Russia for the EU countries started talking about the increasing refusal of Ukrainians to cross the border from the Estonian side at the Ivangorod-Narva border checkpoint. At the same time, with the “same set of documents”, volunteers manage to successfully transport Ukrainians from Russia through other border checkpoints in Estonia and Finland.
“Many of my charges were denied permission to cross the border in Narva,” says one of the volunteers (her name and surname are known to the editors, but Kholod does not indicate them for security reasons). - And the main problem is that no one understands the reason for these failures. A person with a certain set of documents can be let in, and the next day [another] person with an identical set of papers will be deployed.”
According to the interlocutor, Ukrainians are not allowed into Europe “under the pretext that they have been in Russia for too long, both young people and the elderly, both single guys and families, and people from the DPR, and Mariupol residents.” “And this “long” is also the most arbitrary concept: some of those who were denied entry stayed on Russian territory for a week, and someone for two months,” she says. And everyone has their own reasons for that. For example, a person was brought in with severe injuries, or a wife first came [to Russia], but she is waiting for her husband, and someone just needed time to recover from what they had experienced. The phrase “you have been in Russia for too long”, of course, sounds only in conversation, the documents say “not enough grounds to enter the EU.”