Consider This from NPR - Along The Russian Border, Some Ukrainians Already Live With War

Episode Date: February 1, 2022

The world is watching as Russia continues it's threat of invasion with troops at the border of Ukraine. But close to that border, in the Donbas region, people look at you a little funny if you ask whether they're worried about war with Russia, because they are already living through it. Areas of Eastern Ukraine have been at war since 2014 when Russia-backed separatists moved in and declared breakaway republics. And that's where NPR's Mary Louise Kelly has been, talking with residents about what this new threat might mean for them. In participating regions, you'll also hear a local news segment that will help you make sense of what's going on in your community.Email us at [e-mail] more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

A six-hour train journey east from Kyiv, Ukraine, will take you to a part of the country where conflict with Russia is not some future threat. It's daily life. Passing bus stops painted blue and yellow, blue and yellow stripes painted around the lampposts here. It's blue and yellow is the colors of a Ukrainian flag and the clear message painted after 2014. This is Ukraine. This is not Russia. My co-host Mary Louise Kelly was just in the Donbass region of Ukraine, where Russian-backed separatists have been fighting Ukraine's forces since 2014, and where a pedestrian bridge is now the only link between occupied territory and the rest

of the country. My name is Natalia. Natalia, hi. This is your baby? Natalia had just crossed over from Luhansk, the biggest city in the northernmost part of the Russian-occupied territories. We're using only first names now for safety reasons. Mary Louise asked her what life is like there now, with talk of more war on the horizon. People are scared, but nothing changed. You can still see the products on the shelves in the shops. That's good. So electricity is fine. There are things to eat.

Do you want Luhansk to be Ukraine or to go to Russia? The main thing is no war. You almost don't even care as long as it's peace. Yes. I understand. Yeah. Maybe Russia. Why Russia? It's a more stable country.

Others were crossing back into the occupied territory, like Valerie, a 37-year-old English teacher. I'm sorry, I just arrived from Kiev. It was a long trip and I'm a little bit cold. I'm sorry, I understand. Here, have your tea. Just a cup of tea and I'm okay. May we speak to you for a moment while you have your tea? This is my mom. Yes, she has met me. Hi, mom. Nice to meet you. Where are you from? Valerie did not hold back. She made it very clear that she does not like Russia and told Mary Louise that the two of them would be having a very different conversation on the other side of the bridge. You're asking now questions that I'm able to answer now.

On that part, I would think twice. Will I answer your questions or will I say that I'm sorry I'm busy and I have to go? You're waving your tea toward the crossing. Once you cross that bridge, you cannot speak so freely. You cannot speak at all. Consider this. As Russian troops continue to pose a threat at the border, we'll take you to a part of Ukraine that is already at war. From NPR, I'm Elsa Chang. It's Tuesday, February 1st.

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Let's return now to the Donbass region of eastern Ukraine, where people look at you a little funny if you ask whether they're worried about war with Russia, because they are already living it. Since 2014, when Russian-backed separatists moved in and declared breakaway republics, there's been fighting in this region ever since. My co-host Mary Louise Kelly takes it from here. We've come to hear from ordinary people. And to get here, we have traveled nine or ten hours,

first by train, then by car, deep into Ukraine's eastern region of Donbass. Our trip took us as close as we could get to the front line, the village of Stanitsia Luhanska. This is the crossing between those breakaway republics and the rest of Ukraine. It's calm when we visit. Uneasy calm, but a few shops are open, a COVID testing site. You don't have to look hard, though, to see what war with Russia has done to this place. Here's what you see as you walk. A police station crumpled. A school shelled.

The playground outside untouched but rusting. We're told stay on hard pavement, don't step off, there are still active landmines. We get to this residential street, or what is left of a residential street. It's house after house after house with the roof blown in, the windows blown out, bullet and mortar holes pocking the walls. We see a few people. They kind of scurry away when we come up. There's just a few houses that have been redone, and then people clearly trying to live in houses have managed to brick up or just put what looks like plastic over windows,

and they're just cold, and they're living here. You can see the damage from the fighting, the devastation that is still here, still very present in life here. And there is still life here. As we walk, we notice an older man peeking out, maybe curious about the strangers on his street. We flag him down. Hello. Hello.

There are no holes, no broken glass, fresh peach paint, plants in the windows. This is Davidovich. That's his middle name. He does not want his real name on tape. He's worried he'll be recognized, worried about repercussions. He tells us only three people live on the street now, and it is a long street. He's 66, though, like a lot of people here, he looks older by a decade. Davidovich has lived in this town his whole life, in this house since the 1980s. He says life here used to be good,

but now he navigates his neighborhood by remembering where people he knew were killed. On that street, the man died, the woman died there. I ask him who he blames for the fighting, for life being turned upside down. And he quotes a Ukrainian proverb back to me. It means, roughly, when the leaders are fighting, the people will suffer. What will you do if more fighting comes. I don't know. I'm just fed up with that. I'm broken inside, he says, and his eyes are filling up with tears. Davidovich tells us just this morning he heard shooting nearby.

He doesn't know from which direction or who was doing the shooting. He sighs in a way that suggests he's given up trying to keep track. And he talks with us for a long time, like a man who'd forgotten what it's like to have people around to listen. When we finally climb back in the car, the sun is on its way to setting. We need to head back west to the station to catch an overnight sleeper train to Kiev. It's the same drill on the way out as on the way in. Checkpoints. They go smoothly. Between the 4th and the 5th, we arrive in one last city, Severodonetsk. This is where Sasha, our driver, lives with his wife, their kids. Remember, he's the one who told us,

you start to value freedom when you do not have it, when you lose it. They fled here from those occupied territories back closer to the Russian border. His mom is still there and he's worried for her safety. So we've agreed to use his first name. It's dinner time. So Sasha volunteers to take us to a popular spot, a local brewery with club music thumping. We stuff ourselves on Georgian kachapuri bread, fat with cheese and egg and potato, dumplings, borscht spiked with sour cream and sharp green onions. Over coffee, our train leaves

late for once we're not in a hurry, I ask Sasha for his story. Now again, we are paying him to drive us. We would not normally interview him, but he has been shuttling us around all day, and he is actually living the story we're here trying to report. We discover we were both born in Germany because both our dads were in the military, on different sides during the Cold War. He was born in Potsdam in what was East Germany, where the Soviet army was stationed. I was born in the West, in Augsburg, in a U.S. Army field hospital. I mean, you're young. How old are you? 41.

If Russia attacks again, will you try to get your family somewhere safe? Would you stay and fight for your country? What do you think? Yeah, I'm going to take my family and leave. He will take his family and leave again. I ask about his new life here. Are you happy here now? Will you stay?

I feel safe. I feel free. I can go whenever I want. But you still need to think about financial stuff. Money and work is difficult. I'm constantly looking for work, for opportunities. Before he took his family and fled, Sasha owned several grocery shops. He considered himself middle class. Now, not so much.

Do you blame someone for your life being so changed, so disrupted? Russia, Ukraine, bad luck? I blame Russia. Russia and Mr. Putin, 100%. And then he says, I am tired. We have heard this from almost everyone we talk to in eastern Ukraine. So many people have said it over and over that I begin to hear their voices in my head, rising together into something like a song, an anthem, uniting the people of Donbass, no matter their political loyalties, no matter who they believe is to blame for their problems or for this current crisis. We are tired, the refrain would go, of war, of fighting, of worrying. We are so very, very tired. That was my co-host, Mary Louise Kelly, and you are listening to Consider This from NPR.

I'm Elsa Chang.