Between sanctions and refuge

The creator of the Ark project Anastasia Burakova - about why helping Russians abroad does not mean "supporting the aggressor"

Do the Russians should help abroad? If so, who should do this? If not, then what to do to those who left Russia because of an anti-war position? Disputes about whether emigrated citizens of the Russian Federation should be responsible for the military aggression of their country or, conversely, they need protection, like Ukrainian refugees, have been going on for more than a year. After the adoption of the law on electronic summons and a possible new wave of emigration of these conversations, only more. Lawyer Anastasia Burakova founded a project to assist the Russian emigrants "Ark" in March 2022. At the request of Kholoda, Burakov explains what assistance to Russians can reconcile both supporters and opponents of such support.

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When the war began, the question "Help the Russians?" It did not stand for me. A few months before February 24, I myself experienced the emigration “to nowhere”. The website of the human rights organization “Human Rights Cards”, which I coordinated, was blocked by the Prosecutor General’s Office, and in order to protect the clients and lawyers, we decided to close the project. In parallel, the Investigative Committee began to be actively interested in me, to show verification materials under the article on “undesirable”. I decided to leave Russia, although I never wanted and did not plan to do this.

Starting with the full -scale invasion of Russia to Ukraine, in a risk situation, not only civilian activists, independent journalists, human rights activists and opposition politicians were. Tens of thousands of people in Russia opposed the war on social networks, reached protests, signed anti -war petitions, donated funds to Ukrainian organizations. And if those who were in the opposition community knew where to turn for help, then these people were confused after calls at the door of the security forces, detention or dismissal from work.

In the early days of the war, more than a hundred people were written to me - I could not help them alone even with all the desire. Departing from the first shock, I sat down and scattered the project plan - at first these were legal advice and shelter in two visa -free countries - Armenia and Turkey. This format of support for their compatriots was organized by Belarusians in 2020, and it seemed to me the most successful.

At the stage of launching the “Ark”, we were supported by the anti-war committee , but very quickly we collected an impressive amount of donations and proposals of volunteering, thanks to which we were able to quickly expand existing types of assistance and launch others-a telegram channel with instructions, psychological assistance, studying foreign languages, and a mutting community in the country, and began to support anti-war movement.

In parallel, sanctions restrictions were introduced against Russians. People found themselves in another country with blocked bank cards and, even having small savings, could not use them. Some European universities limited the reception of Russians to technical specialties, because these specialties could theoretically be applied in the military industry, the possibility of monetization on foreign resources for Russian citizens was closed. In parallel with the persecution by the Russian security forces, people who opposed war faced restrictions on the part of European countries.

Often people who left the country because of their position, turning for documents (for example, visas), heard from diplomatic institutions: go to Russia and get there, we have such rules. We went to different actors, asked them to sign letters for the worlds, explained the situation, spoke to the European Commissioner for Human Rights - after several months a number of countries changed order and began to accept documents in the countries of actual residence.

Many European countries help dissidents, providing humanitarian visas, which gives them the opportunity to continue civilian activities from a safe place. This is a lot of assistance to Russian civil society in the conditions of war and mass repressions within the country.

The restrictions imposed by IT giants on Russian citizens, as a result, were not hit by propagandists, as, apparently, it was conceived, but on independent media and bloggers. The former feel good at the venues controlled by the Kremlin - VKontakte, Rutube, while those who are telling the truth have lost good opportunities to reach out to the audience within Russia. Many projects work on this problem, trying to explain the real effect of restrictions, but there is no visible progress yet.

European politicians have their own voters, public opinion, on which they depend, and during the war they are not always ready to help citizens of the aggressor country with an open hare. Unfortunately, this is also our common flaw: they know little about Russian anti -war traffic, about Putin’s opponents in the West. This is partly due to the fact that we all rotate in the Russian -speaking information bubble, use our usual information resources, such as Telegram, and rarely go outside to see in other countries: not all Russians support the war and the cannibalist regime.

In fact, there are millions of us - those who are opposed. Not so long ago, the “Ark” began to lead Twitter in English about what is doing anti -war movement. I always communicate with journalists of different countries, if there is such a request, and tell not only about the “ark”, but also about those fellow citizens who continue to fight inside and outside the country, about anti -war, humanitarian, civil, counter -propaganda projects of Russians. Many initiatives in diasporas also carry out such work, but it should be more, and the presentation should be interesting. Agree: you, being in Russia, are unlikely to open an article in the Russian publication, which describes the problems of migrants in registering a work permit. We all are slowly learning to inform information and go to another audience.

I always try to look at any situation from two sides. To say, “Remove sanctions from ordinary Russians”, of course, sounds socially approved, but hardly productive. I understand the decision of the Baltic countries to close the borders for owners of short -term visas from the beginning of mobilization: these are small states that do not have a resource to verify each crossing border. Countries are afraid for their safety: under the guise of running from mobilization, agents of Russian special services, people who committed war crimes, can call. And, for example, for Estonia with a population of 1.3 million people, even 50 thousand remaining create great social tension and the load on the country's budget.

Of course, the historical experience related to Russia, the influence of the Russian -speaking minority on domestic politics, affects. However, most countries are the same fears. Europe and so took on considerable expenses for the placement of Ukrainian refugees, and it is strange to demand to open doors without understandable mechanisms for the country with a huge population. Many countries gradually cancel even those small benefits that were paid to Ukrainian refugees.

We think about systematic sentences and arguments so that other countries can meet the Russians who do not want to become killers and die. In terms of verification of people with risks of persecution, those who can fall under mobilization or desertion, you can offer to take these functions using the competencies of Russian investigative media, human rights organizations: at least confirm that a person did not participate in military crimes or does not cooperate with proceedings throughout the war.

We understand the fears of the host countries associated with the burden of the budget for the maintenance of people leaving Russia. We can offer to create a private capital fund and finance the costs of basic household needs from it, while the situation for people within the country remains dangerous. You can’t just say: “We figured out that everyone needs to be saved, and now organize us all turnkey and pay for us.” In my opinion, this is infantilism.

The longer the war lasts, the less people donate to overcome its consequences. Alas, this touched on most assistance projects. We ourselves were forced to reduce the number of shelter, completely close the shelter in Kazakhstan, most of the work - teaching languages, moderation of chats, psychological assistance, professional retraining, webinars - our volunteers do. It hurts me to read every comment “I could not provide housing”, “I didn’t get into a free language group”, but, unfortunately, we are forced to choose, despite the desire to help every like -minded person who does not support the war.

The author’s opinion may not coincide with the opinion of the editorial office.