"I was the only man of conscription age who left the ‘Donetsk People’s Republic’ for Russia": a resident of Volnovakha who escaped the occupation tells the truth about “filtration”

Maxim is 23 years old. He has a Donetsk residence permit, but he lived in Volnovakha for eight years - he and his family were forced to go there after his native city was occupied in 2014. During this time, Volnovakha became like a second home to him: he studied there, worked in a creative industry and had no plans to leave.

The Russian army and militants from the "DPR" [the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic] occupied Volnovakha in mid-March. This young man survived shelling, life in a bomb shelter with hundreds of people, interrogations and "filtration" [the Russian army has set up special places where Ukrainians are checked for their political views, connections with the Ukrainian army, etc]. And during this time, when he was trying to escape the occupation and get to Europe, he saw Donetsk again for the first time. Here, Maxim describes what the people of Volnovakha had to go through during the fighting and occupation. 

The text was prepared by ABO Local Media Development Agency exclusively for Ukrainska Pravda.

Over 400 people hiding in a hospital basement 

On 24 February, the people of Volnovakha were divided into those who were leaving the city, who were queuing for petrol at petrol stations, and those who had decided to stay, who were queuing at ATMs and for groceries. Neither the first group of people nor the second realised then what scale of destruction awaited our city.

For me, the 25th of February was the worst day. Towards evening, the lights were turned off - and there was a deathly silence. Nobody moved around the city. We were expecting an offensive to begin at any moment.

It happened the next day: in the morning we heard bursts of machine-gun fire and the city was shelled by artillery. My family and I decided to leave our house and go to another part of the city to stay with relatives. As we walked, we saw a lot of burnt-out [military] equipment.

From 27 February onwards, Vodafone and Kyivstar [Ukrainian mobile phone networks] were down all over the city. There was no water or electricity, and after a couple of days the gas disappeared. The occupiers bombarded the city with artillery, and then the air strikes began.

We moved to a "bomb shelter", which was located in the railway hospital. In this narrow, dark basement there were about 400 people, and doctors who helped the wounded. The surgeon and the anesthesiologist on the second floor continued to operate despite the shelling.

That basement was not designed for human habitation. A dark, unventilated room where elderly people, children and the wounded were hiding.

We started knocking down doors in the basement and taking away the rubbish and junk. After that we covered the floors with mattresses, and would sleep like that. Some guys went to a nearby shop, the doors of which had already been broken into, and picked up groceries. We cooked food on an open fire as the bombing went on around us.

When we went out into the streets, we saw that our entire city was on fire. We only got news from each other. After a couple of days, we decided to go to our relatives' house, because we were going crazy from being in the basement.

Militants were already living in my house

The next two weeks were a living hell. The shelling never stopped, day or night. The occupiers could not cross the railway for more than ten days, because the Ukrainian defenders were holding their positions in the train depot.

During this time, an uncountable number of shells flew into the building, ranging from mortars to air strikes. The houses that were next to the enterprise were turned into complete ruins. I was told that there were now many bodies of dead civilians lying on the streets.

On 14 March the shelling decreased, and people began to go out into the streets and walk around the city to their homes and to visit relatives. During this time my house had been badly damaged by the shelling, and militants were living in it. I saw that all the doors and windows were smashed and the heating was broken. There were several "arrivals" [missiles] in the yard. The occupiers were carrying out a cleansing operation, going from house to house looking for Ukrainian soldiers.

Volnovakha started to receive "humanitarian aid" - food products from Russia. But to get it, you had to queue for hours and present your documents. This aid was given out either in the city centre or at the bus station, and no one announced it [in advance]. Everything was like Russian roulette - it depended on whether you were lucky or unlucky. 

Many elderly people did not even know that humanitarian aid was being given out, and not everyone who did know was able to go from one end of the city to the other and stand in a queue for hours and hours.

At first they said that this aid would be provided every month, but then their rhetoric changed. And when asked where the humanitarian aid was, they would answer, "It all went to Mariupol."

They also brought bread to the administration. It was handed out by a Chechen who filmed everything. At first, they [put] a bathhouse in the centre [as there was no water or electricity in the city]. And there were also officials from the [occupiers’] Ministry of Emergency Situations who let people make phone calls, but only to the Phoenix network (a mobile phone operator in occupied Donetsk - ed.). But two weeks later, all this was gone.

Then speculators appeared who would buy goods in Donetsk or Dokuchaevsk and sell them in Volnovakha at three times the price. They were siphoning off hryvnias [the Ukrainian national currency] from the local people. If you wanted to exchange hryvnias for roubles, the rate was miserable. They would give you from 2 to 2.5 roubles to the hryvnia, depending on where you changed.

Fights for "filtration without queuing"

Now I, like many people in the occupation, know from personal experience what "filtration" is, and what you need to go through to get that piece of paper. Without it, it is impossible to move through the territory controlled by the "DPR" militants.

My experience of obtaining this "document" is more than three weeks of waiting in endless queues. First in Dokuchaevsk, and then in the village of Buhas.

In Dokuchaevsk, in order to get a pass, you need to sign up on a list - they give you a serial number. After that, every day between 6 am and 6 pm, you have to mark yourself on the lists, thereby confirming your stay there. If you miss the roll call within three hours, you’ll be crossed off the list.

Dokuchaevsk could "filter" 100-150 people in one day. People were being brought there from Mariupol, and they were registered without having to queue and then immediately sent to Russia.

When it was my turn, the exit from Volnovakha was temporarily closed, and I lost my place in the queue. So I had to go through this procedure in Buhas. A bus from the [occupiers’] Ministry of Emergency Situations would come to Volnovakha from Donetsk. It would take just 35 people to Buhas to go through "filtration" without queuing.

To get on the bus, you had to either sign up on the list and wait about a week for your turn, coming to the city centre every day and checking the list, or you could do it on a first-come, first-served basis.

People would take their seats starting from 2 am onwards, despite the curfew. The most interesting thing happened when these two different queues would meet and decide which of them would be going to Buhas. There were arguments, fights and swearing every day.

The procedure for obtaining a pass was different in Dokuchaevsk and Buhas. In Dokuchaevsk, they took your fingerprints, checked your phone and IMEI, took photos of you and took your passport details, but in Buhas they didn’t even ask for your phone.

When they passed through "filtration", some people came under the close attention of the so-called Ministry of State Security of the "DPR": the militants checked all your social media correspondence, your phone book, laptops. If you did military or contract service in the army, then you were taken for interrogation. That’s how they worked out who could be "dangerous for the ‘republic’".

This wasn’t a problem for me. Back on 25 February, I’d deleted all instant messengers from my phone and checked my phone book. Later, I deleted my photos and videos of the destruction in Volnovakha, leaving only personal pictures.

Here’s a life hack for those who want to keep their information while going through filtering. You can upload everything to a Telegram chat with someone, delete the app, then download it again when you are in safe territory.

People wondered why no one had taken me yet

After obtaining the pass, I found out that there are buses that go straight from Donetsk to Poland. The price of one ticket is $330 or €300 per person. Having found someone on Facebook who would take us from Volnovakha to Donetsk for a thousand hryvnias [approximately $30], we set off for the city I had not been to for eight years.

Although everyone in the car had passes, we were told at the Donetsk checkpoint that we needed a separate pass for the car. We had to hitch a ride which took us to the hostel.

My impression of Donetsk was negative. It turned out that the city had frozen in 2014. You only see girls, women and elderly people on the streets. Men of military age hide if they have not yet been mobilised into the "army of the DPR". 

At 8 am we boarded the bus and started the 72-hour journey to Poland. This route goes through Russia, Latvia and Lithuania.

I felt uncomfortable: when we left the occupation, I was the only man of military age. I don’t know by what miracle, but even with a Donetsk residence permit, I passed calmly through the customs of the "DPR" and Russia, although the other passengers were surprised that I was not afraid to go and wondered why no one had taken me yet.

It took about two hours to get through the "DPR"-Russia customs, and about seven hours [of custom control] from Russia to Latvia. The first thing you see on the Latvian border is an announcement inviting everyone who has suffered from Russian aggression to report their crimes. The border guards were very friendly, and I was filled with calm and a sense of security. After travelling for 12 hours, I arrived in Warsaw.

An unfamiliar country, a different language, no plan for my life, and uncertainty. All this awaits me here, but even so, I’m glad that I was able to leave my city, which has been occupied.

I understand that the first step is to unload emotionally and physically and give myself a little rest. After 70 days without water, electricity or gas and under fire, the body demands a peaceful and slow-paced life. Then I will need to arrange employment documents and look for a job, while at the same time learning the language and adapting to a new country.

Volnovakha and my house have been destroyed, so I will look for a new place for myself in this world. 

 ABO Local Media Development Agency