In occupied regions, Ukrainians are being forced to accept Russian passports
My new story in the Washington Monthly explains what this means.
Journalism is too opaque and misunderstood. Chills gives a behind-the-scenes look at how dangerous investigative journalism gets made.
In June, in a small town on the Dnieper River in southern Ukraine, an elderly couple sat in their attic, not by choice. They were waiting for the waters to recede from the breach of the Kakhovka dam that left their home awash in debris—and thousands homeless in this area of eastern Ukraine, largely occupied by Russia. (I’m not using the couple’s real names to protect their identities and those close to them.) The septuagenarians perched there for a week, drinking wine straight from bottles that the man, Borys, had the foresight to grab as he fled upstairs to safety. He also scurried to higher ground with Tupperware containers, gifts from his daughter. Amid the disaster, he thought she’d be angry if he let the expensive-by-Ukrainian-standards food storage get ruined.
Borys, 74, and Halyna, 72, forgot essential documents in their scramble to survive, including their passports.
Rescue efforts eventually reached the teetering home, which was fortunate. The Russian military often denies aid to locals in the illegally annexed portion of Ukraine. During the flooding, Russian soldiers even shot at Ukrainians operating rescue boats. As the couple boarded one such vessel, Halyna broke her leg badly.
Things only got worse.
To read the rest of this story, please click over to Washington Monthly.
For more about what happened to Borys and Halyna, I’ve written this post.
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An important story and what a tragedy that the woman passed away. I can't imagine what life is like for Ukrainians, other than thinking about what my family endured and in some cases didn't survive, in occupied The Netherlands in WWII. There needs to be accountability, but will it ever happen?