‘I still blame Putin’

Residents of Russia’s Kursk region on fleeing Ukraine’s offensive, searching for missing relatives, and whether their views on the war have changed

In just the first week of its cross-border offensive in Russia’s Kursk region, the Ukrainian Armed Forces (AFU) managed to push at least 27 kilometers (17 miles) into Russian territory. According to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Kyiv currently controls dozens of Russian settlements. The regional authorities have reported that about 120,000 civilians have been evacuated from the affected areas and that 180,000 people are subject to evacuation orders. The independent journalists’ cooperative Bereg spoke to two evacuees about what they’ve experienced over the last week. Meduza shares an English-language translation of their accounts, abridged for length and clarity.

Alina (name changed)

Searching for her relatives who stayed behind

My mom and my grandparents are currently near Sudzha. When the [full-scale invasion of Ukraine] started, I was living in Belgorod and had to flee shelling myself. Since [early] spring 2024, I’ve spent a total of two months living with my mom in Sudzha. There was already shelling there; you heard it every day, and it frays your nerves. In the last two months, it became more frequent and things got scarier; I started going down to the basement almost every day and every night — every time there was a loud explosion.

My grandma often went to the basement with me. My grandpa usually ignored the shelling, but when it got especially intense, when it was right in the city for half an hour and the power went out, he would go down there, as well.

A month ago, I got tired of it and left Sudzha for another town. The shelling hasn’t changed my family’s political views very much. My mom doesn’t really trust the authorities. My grandpa is 70 and he’s just as pro-Putin as ever. He watches TV and reads the same stuff online that he sees on television. I’m only now starting to understand that it was no coincidence that the shelling ramped up [this summer]. They were specifically targeting military [sites]. Probably to clear the way for their offensive.

On August 6, [the AFU] attacked Sudzha, and that evening was the last time I talked to my family. My mom said they were alive and that “everything was fine” but that she didn’t have time to talk or for jokes. But nobody was joking, we were just asking them to leave. They have a car and they could have gotten out in time. But I could tell that someone had refused [to evacuate]— probably my grandfather. I didn’t hear anything else from them until yesterday [August 12].

At about 3:00 p.m., my mom sent me a Telegram message saying they were alive and that “everything’s fine.” She asked me to let our relatives know. I don’t know how she got Internet access. I tried to call her back, but it said her number was unavailable, and she was only on Telegram for five minutes before it dropped the call.

After that, I got one more message from her number. It just said: “Everything’s fine.” I’m confused about who wrote it, because the word “fine” was misspelled, which isn’t like my mom. It was weird.

It’s possible my relatives thought the [Ukrainian incursion] would be temporary. They’ve been living with constant explosions for two years now, so this wasn’t the same shock they felt in February 2022, when nobody could function normally for several months. [Everyone in Sudzha] has gotten used to it by now. And when this attack began, they probably thought everyone was overreacting. They may have thought that it would be over by the end of the day. But it’s been a week now, and it’s too late for them to leave. I don’t even know how they would get out — everything is mined and there are drones everywhere, it’s dangerous.

Judging from all of the maps and reports from [local] chat groups, my house is under AFU control. We had two Ukrainian men living and working in our village, and for the last two years, they’ve been able to travel back home freely using their Ukrainian passports. Nobody in our village bothered them — everyone just knew [they were Ukrainian]. Our neighbors said that after the [Ukrainian incursion began, the AFU] evacuated them to Sumy.

We called [the emergency services] and the Red Cross. It was hard to reach them, and they said they couldn’t provide any information; they just wrote down [my relatives’ names] and our address. Nobody ever called back.

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Today I sent an application to [the search-and-rescue volunteer organization] Liza Alert, but they just asked what my relatives look like, where they were located, whether they had a car, and asked for photos. The emergency services people didn’t even ask for their birth dates, just their names.

I’ve always opposed the war, supported the Ukrainians, and hated the pro-invasion fanatics. But things have developed in such a way that I’m now following all the pro-war bloggers and waiting for [Russia] to kick the AFU out of my hometown. I haven’t changed my views — I still blame Putin for this. But now I’m hoping that the people I previously hated will succeed. It’s a really strange feeling.

Kristina (name changed)

Previously lived in Sudzha, now staying in Kursk and helping other evacuees

The attacks had intensified [before Ukraine launched its cross-border offensive], especially drones attacks. Mostly, it wasn’t in the city itself, of course, but on the roads, such as the Sudzha–Kursk highway, the Sudzha–Korenevo highway, and so on. The drones would follow locals down the roads.

What’s happening right now started on the night of August 5. I was in Kursk at the time, and my parents and 17-year-old brother were at home in Sudzha. My brother went to my mom and said, “Mom, looks like they’re shelling us.” My mom said she didn’t even know at first whether it was our side or the other side. She, my dad, and my brother hid in the closet and stayed there all night. In the morning, my dad drove my brother to Kursk to stay with relatives, and my mom stayed behind. Then they lost cell service, and we weren’t able to get in touch with her for an hour and a half.

At that point, Mom was hiding because she heard a tank [shooting]. When things quieted down, she went outside to feed the animals and she got some cell service — one bar. Right then, my brother called her: “Mom, get out of there, they’re saying on the news that the AFU is advancing.” Mom was barefoot, but she grabbed the cats, got in the car, and came to Kursk. On the highway, she said, she saw an entire truck on fire, its whole cabin charred black; the driver was probably dead. When we finally managed to get her on the phone, I breathed a sigh of relief. Literally two hours later, I learned that our house was gone — it had been hit by a shell.

Now our entire family is in Kursk. We absolutely weren’t prepared [for the possibility of Ukrainian troops entering our town]. There was no [official] warning that the AFU was advancing towards us and that we should evacuate. Mom said she left our house keys behind because she thought things would calm down quickly. A lot of people left their pets, their cars, their parents behind, thinking they’d be back soon.

We have a lot of acquaintances and family friends who stayed in Sudzha and other [settlements now occupied by the AFU]. My great aunt stayed in the village of Plekhovo: she doesn’t have service, and we don’t know if she’s alive or not. We can’t go get her because all of the roads to Sudzha are controlled by the AFU, and they’re constantly targeting vehicles. They’ve blocked all the paths for people trying to evacuate residents. Another family, our good friends, couldn’t get in touch with anybody for a long time; they lived in Goncharovka. [We later learned that] they’d been taken captive and forced to make propaganda videos about Russia, but they were later released and [allowed to] leave Sudzha. They were fired at on their way out. It’s a miracle they got out alive, but they did.

So far, we haven’t contacted the authorities for help; we’re not sure how to go about it, because we left all the paperwork for our house back at home, and now they’ve been burned. To assess the damage, someone has to go to your house and evaluate it, which just isn’t feasible right now.

We don’t know what to do, where to go, or who to contact. We’re thinking of leaving [the Kursk region] altogether: the AFU is literally hours from our city, and even in Kursk, every loud noise makes us jump. But we don’t have any relatives or friends [elsewhere], so if we leave, we’ll have to either rent a place or join [the people] evacuating to big cities. It’s all a big question mark right now; it still feels like a bad dream that will be over soon.

This hasn’t changed my view of the special military operation at all. Our country is the very best, I still love my president and believe he’s the best, and I’m still proud of our army. I don’t think this military operation was a mistake and I believe that what’s happening now is just one more piece of evidence that [the Ukrainians] are the true fascists. My cousin went to fight in the special military operation and he barely made it back alive; he had terrible injuries. But even after that and what’s happened now, my family and I haven’t changed our opinions.

Interviews by Elizaveta Antonova, Alexandra Amelina, and other reporters for Bereg. Abridged translation by Sam Breazeale.