The road from the occupied territories will never be easy: from the decision to leave home, and often relatives, to start life from scratch, to the very route to the territory controlled by Ukraine or to European countries. After the beginning of the full-scale invasion, people were leaving the occupation zone through numerous checkpoints where they could be detained, taken to the torture chamber, or robbed. Some people went missing or died under shelling. The cars were waiting for several days, because the occupiers did not want to let them pass. In the heat, in the middle of mined fields. Not everyone dared to take such a path. And not all of those who dared managed to overcome it.
Now there are several ways out of the occupied territories — to the countries of the European Union and to the free territory of Ukraine. All of them pass through Russia. In order to leave, you need to have money, be ready for the filtration procedure, searches, and exhausting road. Moreover, it is possible that they will not let you out.
What do we know about the road from the occupation, and sometimes to the occupation? "You know nothing if you have not overcome it yourself," says one of the characters of this text. Another calls this experience the scariest in her life.
How people leave the occupation zone, what awaits them on the way and why and how they return there – read in the stories of eyewitnesses.
"I wanted to wait for the liberation of the village, but I had to leave"
When the Russian military entered the village of Krynky in Kherson region on February 24, 2022, 50-year-old Natalia and her mother decided that they would not leave. It was their home, and they hoped they would survive somehow. The plan was as follows: not to go out of the yard very often, not to provoke the occupiers, to take care of the orchard and vegetable garden so that there was something to eat, to help neighbors and relatives.
"Those who came to the village first were just scoundrels – they were so inadequate! – Natalia recalls. – They were the Kadyrovites. At night, we heard how they, drunk, were shooting guns. They told us that people were killed by the Ukrainian military, and by the Banderovites, and that the NATO did something wrong. They were telling stupid things! We knew they had done it [the murders]."
Once, Russian soldiers came to the women’s yard to dig trenches and to equip a position for a sniper. They were digging trenches right near the houses: some people were forcibly driven out so that they would not bother.
"I told them: you should not dig here, it is my garden – but they did not care! One of them had been digging that sniper position for a week, then covered it with all kinds of garbage and lay there, aiming at the floodplains. They were very afraid of our [Ukrainian] military, – Natalia says. – While he was digging, he was surprised that two women in the village have electricity, a washing machine, a shower and a toilet in the house. I could not bear it and said, "Because you have to work, not go to other countries to kill people!" He became sad and it was like a confession. He said that they had made up all those stories about the NATO and the Ukrainian military to hide their own crimes. He said that now that Russia has come, we would also live in poverty. In a few days, he died – it seemed that the Russians themselves killed him. No pity at all. No pity for any of them."
In early March, two shells hit Natalia’s yard. One destroyed the kitchen (it was a separate building in the yard), the other demolished half of the house. "From that moment on, we had nowhere to live," the woman recalls. Then she adds, "But even then, we still did not think about leaving". She and her mother moved to the elderly neighbors.
On June 6, 2023, the Russians blew up the dam of the Kakhovka hydroelectric power plant and Krynky got under the water in one day. Natalia’s relative from the neighboring village – Kozachi Laheri – managed to take her mother and neighbors out. Natalia herself and other neighbors remained in the village for some time in a two-story house. "The water stopped just at the level of the second floor. One-story houses, orchards, vegetable gardens, cattle, chickens – everything got under the water. People were also drowning – both our people from the village and the occupiers. When the water receded, the Russians dug a pit outside the village and raked the dead cattle there. People say that they also raked their own servicemen there." Natalia’s relative died at that time, she went to identify him. "But how I could identify him – the body was floating in the water for a week, clinging to everything... Oh, those who have not lived in the occupation and have not seen all this will not be able to understand," she sighs.
In the end, Natalia also moved to Kozachi Laheri. At that time, Ukrainian assault groups were already operating on the occupied Left Bank. The occupiers, the woman recalls, became nervous – they started breaking into houses, searched to see whether Ukrainian soldiers were hiding there. "But the worst thing was that they forced us to take Russian passports."
Natalia tells that without them [Russian passports] it was no longer possible to go to the store, to the pharmacy, or to the doctor – nowhere. Then they and their neighbors decided to leave. She says, "The road was frightening, but the prospect of living with Russian passports was even more frightening."
The road from the occupation: long and terrible
At the beginning of the full-scale invasion, Ukrainians from the newly occupied parts of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions could leave for the Ukraine-controlled territory via Zaporizhzhia region, in particular through Vasylivka or Novofedorivka. It was dangerous. The Russians fired at buses and cars, people went missing, they had to wait in lines at the checkpoint for 5-7 days. There were cases when people died from exhaustion and heat. At the same time, this route was shorter and cheaper.
The alternative route – through Crimea, Russia, Belarus, the Baltic countries, Poland – was much longer and more expensive. In addition, in Crimea, people underwent filtration. However, it was safer to go this way, because the path did not go through the zone of active hostilities.
In the summer of 2022, Tetiana (the name has been changed) was taking two children out of the occupied part of the south: one child has a disability and the other needs special attention due to behavioral and emotional disorders. They left with a 20-year-old driver who was looking for passengers with disabilities, probably in order to leave the occupation zone himself. They went to Vasylivka. There were kilometer-long queues: the occupiers let cars through only a few hours a day. "The road is in the sun, the roadsides are mined. The children used to go to the toilet right between the cars, – the woman says. – At the checkpoint, the Kadyrovites said, "We set you free, and you are fleeing – then you may die!" Then Tetiana had a mini-stroke. She recalls, "An arm and a leg did not move, my face was crooked, I could not speak, my saliva was dripping. The children were already inadequate. The son was vomiting and howling, the daughter was simply hysterical. In the end, they let us through. They probably took pity on us."
In December 2022, the occupiers closed the checkpoint in Vasylivka.
"We accept payment in dollars, rubles, and hryvnias"
Currently, there are two main routes; both pass through the territory of the Russian Federation. In the summer of 2022, the Ministry of Reintegration of the Temporarily Occupied Territories declared that leaving Russia under such conditions is not a violation of the law.
The first way out is via Crimea. At the entrance to it, the Russians created a "border". People fill out a "migration document" here. In it, they indicate the number of days they plan to be in Crimea or in the territory of Russia; with this "document" they go further. The second route is via the occupied Mariupol and Novoazovsk.
Carriers bring people from these territories of Ukraine to Russia. You can leave in your own car, but the occupation authorities force people to get Russian license plates, and some EU countries have banned entry with Russian license plates, so you will have to leave your car at the border with the European Union. The same applies to the checkpoint "Kolotilovka (Belgorod region of the Russian Federation) – Pokrovka (Sumy region of Ukraine)". Through this two-kilometer humanitarian corridor, you can get directly to Ukraine, but only on foot because Russia has forbidden crossing it by car.
You can also leave the Russian Federation for Belarus and then cross the Belarusian-Ukrainian border. People with severe illnesses and the elderly often use this path because there is no pedestrian corridor here, and volunteers and ambulances can meet a person as soon as he/she passes the check.
The schedule, ticket price, route and other conditions of carriers can be found in numerous Telegram channels, chatbots, and Facebook groups. Some carriers – mainly large ones – have constant conditions. Other carriers work on a smaller scale, and then the prices depend only on the imagination of the driver. Prices now range from USD 250 to 600 in different groups. Carriers note: "We accept payment in dollars, rubles, and hryvnias". Some charge a separate fee for pets.
"You will be met and helped in Ukraine"
Volunteer Vlad and his team help to cross the "Kolotilovka – Pokrovka" checkpoint. "On the Ukrainian side, we meet people who pass this two-kilometer corridor, we work in cooperation with charitable organizations that have access to neutral territory to help them pass," he says.
When people enter the territory of Ukraine, they are checked by the Security Service of Ukraine. They also hand over Russian passports and rubles, if they have them. "It is better to be sincere and honest, not to try to hide a Russian passport or something else. Then there will be no problems. Of course, there were cases when dishonest people happened, they were taken to be checked with a polygraph," says Vlad. "But in general, the attitude of our authorities towards those who come from the occupation is humane."
Vlad says that among those who are leaving the occupation, young men are the minority. The Russians do not allow them out. "Mostly, men 60 and older, women, grandmothers, and children go," says the volunteer. "People often stay until the last moment with the hope that liberation is about to happen, but when the young men reach the age of mobilization, the family finally dares to leave. I heard stories from young men that they had to pay a lot of money in local medical institutions to get fake certificates, because the occupiers often turn them back with the words "You have already arrived".
Vlad tells about the earning schemes of Russian border guards. In particular, they cooperate with local hotels. Border guards detain people at the border for several days, force them to spend the night in a hotel, and then they receive a part of the hotel earnings. Or they detain people with Ukrainian passports until they pay them. The average price is USD 200-250.
"My sick father is in the occupation; I have to go to him"
People not only leave the occupation, but also return to these territories for various reasons. These are trips to the elderly and sick relatives, or to prove the ownership of the property – if the owner does not appear for a certain time, the occupying authorities put the house on sale, settle in Russians, or declare these apartments their property. There are cases when people return because they want to go home. This does not always mean that they support Russia.
Now there are two ways to enter the occupied territory; both are through Russia. The first is through the checkpoints between Europe and the Russian Federation if you have an internal Russian passport. However, on October 16, 2023, Russia closed all checkpoints except one on the Latvian-Russian border. There they allow up to 10 pedestrians and up to 10 cars per day.
The second way is through Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport. For this, you need to have a Ukrainian foreign passport. This airport can be reached by flights from third countries. There are also carriers that offer to cover part of the journey by land. The average price in this case is 500 dollars per person.
The woman, who asked not to disclose her name, says that she goes to the occupied territory because she has a sick father there. She left in the first days of the occupation, she does not have a Russian passport, and she says that every trip is a lottery. With Ukrainian documents, one can enter the occupied territories only through "Sheremetyevo". There, everyone goes through the so-called filtration: people’s phones are checked, recently deleted programs and correspondence are restored, and social networks are looked through for the period of several years. They may reject entrance for a photo with the Ukrainian flag or a "like" under a post dedicated to Volodymyr Zelenskyi. Some people are banned from visiting Russia for ten years. "But my father is in the occupation, I have to go to him," says the woman.
Another woman recently went to the occupied Mariupol to register the ownership of the apartment. She left the city in the first days of the full-scale invasion, her apartment was hit several times, but the building still stands. She says that her children grew up there, their drawings and family photos hung on the walls, so it hurts her to think that occupiers will move into this apartment. She wants to rent it out to the people from Mariupol and return after liberation.
Both women are afraid to tell their stories even anonymously. They do not know whether these trips will harm their relatives – both in the occupation and in the Ukraine-controlled territories. The only thing they ask is not to condemn them.
At the same time, Ukrainian human rights activists remind that trips to the occupied territories are risky. "For the people who go there, Ukraine as a state does not create any obstacles: it is not regulated in any way. At the same time, each such trip is a potential +1 hostage, +1 illegally detained, +1 political prisoner. There is an example of illegally imprisoned Crimean Tatar woman Leniye Umerova, who was detained by the Russians when she went to the occupied Crimea to visit her sick father. Therefore, Ukraine does not encourage people to go to the occupation, does not comment on this topic, except that such a trip is a significant risk, which can result in a long term of imprisonment," says Alyona Lunyova, director of advocacy at the ZMINA human rights center.
"We have to survive!"
Natalia, her mother and neighbors were leaving Krynky under fire in two vehicles. The first one was a passenger car with Donetsk license plates and a van with Kherson license plates followed it. "As I see it, the transportation was done by a local collaborator, oh, how he got on our nerves!" – recalls Natalia. – He took USD 200 from each person. We were going for almost two days through fields, we lost the road, turned back, he did not know the way or tried to deliberately bypass some places."
"At first, the driver was saying, 'Ukraine will win, we will win!', and then on the way he started saying that it was Ukraine that destroyed Mariupol, sent the guys to their deaths, that we almost made it all ourselves," the woman says. She adds, "We were keeping silence, although, of course, we wanted to answer him. When we were driving past the destroyed Azovstal plant in Mariupol, everyone in the car was crying."
The route ran through the occupied Melitopol and Mariupol, Russian Rostov, Voronezh, and Belgorod. In Rostov, Natalia says, they told the border guards that they were going to visit their relatives in Russia; they gave the address. "In the form, it was necessary to indicate that we support the "United Russia" [party], the special military operation, otherwise we would have problems.
The driver wanted to collect extra money from us for the border guards. We spent the night at a gas station. When we finally arrived at the "Kolotilovka – Pokrovka" checkpoint, we were not thoroughly searched there, my phone was not checked at all. It was scary when we were walking through the humanitarian corridor, and the Russian border guards, 20 people, were standing and watching. There was a feeling that they would shoot in the back. We were under occupation, we know that one should not turn the back to the Russians, – says Natalia. Suddenly, she starts to smile. – We were walking these two kilometers. I was carrying three bags. My neighbor was pushing a wheelchair with her husband; my mother was also carrying things. Then it started to rain a little and we saw two rainbows over the Ukrainian checkpoint. I felt then: everything will be fine."
Natalia says that even this difficult road is worth it to end up in the Ukraine-controlled territory. The only thing she regrets is that she left her family photos in Kozachi Laheri, she was afraid that the occupiers would take them during the filtration procedure. Now she worries whether these photos from the previous peaceful life will be preserved.
Natalia now lives in one of the regions of Ukraine. Near the house, she has planted the same flowers that she planted in Krynky. She says she and her relatives and neighbors, who have been scattered throughout Ukraine and European countries by the war, want to return home after the liberation. "Krynky is destroyed, but free. We will rebuild everything; the main thing is that there are no occupiers there."