"Grandmother was simply covered with hoarfrost." Collapse at the border crossing of Kolotilovka

At the only border post between Russia and Ukraine - Kolotilovka in the Belgorod region, refugees who wanted to go home to Ukraine spent three days in the cold and without elementary conditions. Local volunteers believe that the queue was created artificially and are afraid of the repetition of the collapse, the correspondent of the North Realia found out.

Ukrainian refugees through Kolotilovka are sent by volunteers from different cities, including St. Petersburg. The humanitarian disaster has been going on for two weeks. The throughput in Kolotilovka has decreased sharply, because the time of operation of the border crossing has been reduced-due to the fact that it began to get dark earlier, it now works not until 18.00, as before, but an hour less. Then the transition was generally limited, because it is in this area that the prisoners and bodies of the dead military are exchangeing. The line increased, and by the morning of October 7, approximately 250-300 people accumulated on the border.

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“They began to keep people for a long time, had to stay overnight - in terrible conditions in the open air,” says the volunteer Arina (the name was changed at her request. - SR). - There is nowhere to buy water and food there, many do not have money for hostel either, only to spend the night on the street. In addition, Kolotilovka is a walking transition, you can’t go to the car there.

Volunteers delivered refugees through hostels, searched for them overnight, but there were almost no sleeping places. Previously, at the border crossing there was a temporary placement of the “turn”, there was a item of the Ministry of Emergencies with food and water, there you could sleep on the clashes. But now there is nothing. The volunteers turned on social networks to the Governor of the Belgorod Region Vyacheslav Gladkov, so that he would organize heated tents with benches, thermostats, beds and thermal lands in the checkpoint zone, and provided people with hot drinks and nutrition, and also sent additional FSB border guards to reduce the line near the border. They also wrote in the regional Duma, the Red Cross, the FSB about people who freeze in the open air, about disabled people, the elderly, for whom there are no conditions for rest at the border post, but also a wild line in front of a difficult pedestrian road. The answer did not come from nowhere. And then it turned out that places were sold in line for the border transition. If you pay three thousand rubles per person, then everyone will pass quickly, if not, you will have to stand for three days, warned refugees.

According to the Belgorod Telegram channel "Pepel", those who agreed to pay were put on a separate bus. Places were sold on behalf of a certain Elena Lyanskaya - her business cards were handed out to Ukrainians by an unknown woman on the silver "Renault Logan". This woman works as an ordinary cashier, the authors of the canal suggest that she simply raised money for local officials.

“The queue resolved when the story of the sale of places at the border crossing surfaced,” says Arina. - The situation became catastrophic - for example, one grandmother was simply covered in the morning.

Shortly before the collapse, St. Petersburg volunteers crossed two families through Kolotilovka (all names were changed for security purposes).

Anna has not seen her daughter Olya for more than a year. When Kherson was still occupied, she had to leave to the right bank of the Dnieper from the town on the left bank - also occupied. The teenage daughter remained with her grandmother, Anna's mother-in-law. And it so happened that all the documents of Olya were in her mother’s bag - I forgot to lay them out. When Anna was in Kherson, the Russian troops left him, and the city again became Ukrainian. And Olya and her grandmother remained on the left bank. More than a year passed, the Kakhovskaya hydroelectric power station was blown up, the grandmother’s house and Olya were flooded, they themselves managed to escape. The Russians transported them to the village of Lazurny-once a resort place near Skadovsk, and now-a temporary accommodation point (PVR). Anna absolutely did not understand how she could pick up her daughter. She managed to do this with the help of St. Petersburg volunteers. Anna, through all of Ukraine and Europe, arrived in St. Petersburg, and then reached the azure. Olya’s grandmother had already taken a Russian passport and was not going anywhere, and Anna brought the Ukrainian documents Olya, who really wanted to go home to Ukraine, to her older brothers and sisters. It remains only to get there in the shortest way. And this shortest way was through Kolotilovka.

Now the whole family is already together, Anna sent a photo to the volunteers: on it, older children hug Olya.

“The first checkpoint we passed quickly, in about 30 minutes we checked the documents, things and let it from the checkpoint to the zero kilometer,” Anna wrote. - The so -called hiking (about two kilometers long. - SR) also passed quickly.

Suitcases, bags and iron trolleys on wheels are lying along the road, the road is so bad that you will not pass with them, refugees say.

Another Ukrainian family, who also helped to reunite Petersburg volunteers - Irina, her six -year -old daughter Zoya and the cat Drugan. Irina has not seen Zoya for more than a year - the woman hastily fled with her young man through Russia and Europe to Ukraine after in the occupied city bought him from the Russians who put her friend "to the basement". The child and the cat remained with the grandmother. The house where they lived was higher than the places flooded with water due to the explosion of the Kakhovskaya hydroelectric power station, but there were always problems with the connection. Irina was very yearning for her daughter and dreamed of picking her up.

For the sake of this, she again had to go the same way - through Europe, Petersburg, Russia - to the occupied territory and back to St. Petersburg. The cat was terribly squeezed and veterinarians were afraid to make him the necessary vaccinations. For a week and a half, he only ate and slept, after which the volunteers sent all three to Ukraine through Kolotilovka. Now they are all in one of the Western Ukrainian cities where the family rented housing.

Petersburg volunteers help many Ukrainian refugees go to Ukraine, they buy them products, carts and tickets to the border post. In the Belgorod region, volunteers also help Ukrainians. One of them provided his house, where Ukrainians can relax, but he is quite far from the border crossing. There are those who bring people to the border.

Normal conditions are needed for Ukrainians who are striving to return home, volunteers say.

“You really need a tent, a generator, a heater, tea, chairs,” says Arina. - It would be nice to the house nearby, so that, if there is a delay, people can spend the night.

Many Ukrainians from the occupied territories want to go home. Not everyone is able to the road through all of Russia and Europe - among these people there are many sick, elderly, those who want to take their pets - cats and dogs, and to do this through Europe is now incredibly problematic, often it is often impossible.

Living with Ukrainian passport in the occupied territories is becoming more and harder - people are deprived of the opportunity to receive pensions, work normally, they are not given humanitarian help, there are no medical care, preferential and simply necessary drugs - because they do not want to take a Russian passport. And a normal border crossing for many of them is a vital necessity, Petersburg volunteers believe. They are very afraid that when the noise is settled, the Ukrainians are again stuck in lines.

Russia invaded Ukraine early on the morning of February 24, 2022. The shelling of Ukrainian cities and infrastructure facilities provoked a humanitarian, migration and energy crisis. On March 2, a week after the start of the invasion, the UN General Assembly adopted the Aggression against Ukraine resolution with a demand to Russia to immediately withdraw troops from the territory of Ukraine. The 141 countries voted, against - 5, 35 countries abstained.

The Russian side hides its losses in this war. According to estimates, which, according to open sources, conduct BBC and Mediazon, on October 6, the names and burial places of 33,904 Russian troops are known .

Ukraine also does not publish data on the loss of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. According to the UN at the end of August 2023, more than 9,500 civilians have died in Ukraine since the beginning of the war. Over 17,000 were injured. As of the end of June 2023, 5.6-6.7 million Ukrainians are abroad, as a result of the war, of which about 1.3 million in Russia, it follows from the study of the Center for Economic Strategy (CES).