First there was this message of incredible violence, sent on the first day of the war, February 24, by one of his aunts: “Sveta, congratulations on your return to Russia! Don’t write me fakes! »
A tear ? The word “rupture” would be more appropriate to describe the way the war started by Russia severed the ties between Svetlana, a 39-year-old Ukrainian art critic, and the rest of her family settled in Russia. A break that began with the annexation of Crimea by Moscow in 2014, and made irreversible by this war.
After this terrible message, a dialogue begins, in which Svetlana’s aunt sends her a Russian propaganda video justifying the attack. The 30-year-old says: “I told him that I knew that was not true because I live here, and when Russia bombed the kyiv TV tower, I heard it physically, not on TV. » She couldn’t convince her.
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“They are victims of propaganda”, judge this mother, who detects, like many, in the attitude of her relatives, the toxic influence of state news channels. “They have been talking on Russian television for a long time about Ukraine as part of Russia. This war did not surprise me. »
As in Svetlana’s family, how many Russians and Ukrainians today have family, parents, relatives, friends, on either side of the border? Impossible to give a reliable estimate, as the porosity between the two countries, and even more between the two peoples, is great. At the heart of the intimacy of families and circles of friends, another war is being played out.
“Defend peace by private messages”
It’s a modest little house on the edge of a dirt road, on the heights of Odessa. In the living room, the bed is made on an unfolded sofa. In one corner, a worn metal stove, logs in a basket on the tiled floor. Icons, a poster on which is written the Our Father. It is the house of Elena, known as “Lena”, the mother of Anton Kudinov, a 34-year-old advertiser who fled the kyiv region at the start of the war.
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For almost twenty years, Anton has corresponded with a friend who lives thousands of kilometers away, in Vladivostok, “a local influencer from the Russian Far East”, explains Anton, without mentioning his first name. In August 2021, this friend arrives in Ukraine: “She was interested in the political situation here, beyond the propaganda. She asked me if we still had Russian language schools. I told him yes, even if there are less, and that we had no problem with the Russian language. She enjoyed her stay in Ukraine. »
When Moscow starts the war, the young publicist writes on Messenger to his friend from Vladivostok to find out her reaction. “We are ashamed, but it was not us who sent the troops, it was Putin. I didn’t vote for him, I didn’t want that to happen. » Anton is bitter. He relaunches it: ” But what are you doing ? » On Instagram, the influencer posts sibylline, neutral messages: “I am sad to see what is happening. »
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She’s self-censoring, her Ukrainian friend thinks. “She told me that she defends peace by private messages. Well, that’s what she claims…” Pushed to her limits by Anton, the influencer ends up letting go: “Are you aware of the new rules in Russia? » Recently promulgated, a law provides for up to fifteen years in prison in the event of the spread of “fake news” on the action of the Russian armed forces and prohibits any talk of “war” in Ukraine. “It’s an excuse for her. She started telling me that was all she could do, then posed as a victim. » Anton a “cut ties”.
“Your beloved Russia has invaded my country…”
Maria Stolbova’s family is originally from Russia and Crimea, this peninsula in southern Ukraine mainly populated by Russians and annexed by Moscow in 2014. Born in Sevastopol, the large port of Crimea, this 25-year-old lawyer followed her law studies in Odessa, where she resides. The rift with his parents begins to widen at the time of Putin’s coup in Crimea: “I was against it, but my parents were for it, because they come from Russian regions and consider themselves Russian. »
Residents of Donetsk, the territory controlled by a pro-Russian separatist government in eastern Ukraine, gather to fill out paperwork after being evacuated to the Rostov-on-Don region near the border with Ukraine, in Russia, Sunday, February 20, 2022. / AP
The young woman continues: “When the invasion started, my mother called me to ask if I was okay. I said to him: “But how do you expect me to be well, when your beloved Russia has invaded my country and killed people?” She replied that it was simply “a lesson”, to “teach Ukrainians to behave well”…” Taken aback, Maria replies: “Mom, if you woke up to see a message from me saying bombs are falling around me, what would you say? » Response : ” Nothing. »“There, I told him that I no longer saw what was left to tell us…”
→ Time.news. Russia and Ukraine, history and memory
Maria had a last exchange with her mother, on the third day of the war. “She said to me: ‘Come on, you’re a young Russian woman!’ I told her, “No mum. I was born in an independent Ukraine.” » The next day, his mother sends him a video of his nephew, and the image of a bouquet of flowers. “I blocked her”, lets go of Maria. End of exchanges between a mother and her daughter.
“They Hate Us”
On the other side of the border, in Moscow, Yana talks about“a war between brothers, in the same family”. An intimate experience, for her too: her father is “half Ukrainian”, just like his mother. Born in Russia, her two children have “Ukrainian blood”, insists this forties who works in the media sector.
She remembers happy days: “At my wedding, fifteen years ago, we invited our Ukrainian friends. » It was ages ago. “We have lost contact with them. I tried to keep the link via social networks but they hate us”she said, sadly. “Like many Russians”she assures, Yana keeps herself informed via social networks, but also thanks to contacts “among the pro-Russians of Donbass” and others in western Ukraine. “I get messages from both sides. This allows me to have a clear and real vision of the situation, far from the propaganda that reigns on both sides », she assures. In the very tense climate today in Moscow, she will say no more.
→ EXPLANATION. Ukraine: the double identity of Donbass, a region shaped by its history
His compatriot Andrei, an executive in a large public sector company in Moscow, comes from a family on horseback “between two countries”. But a family that has resolutely chosen sides: “My father is Ukrainian, my grandfather is Ukrainian. But here, in Russia, we are all Russians! » This very religious 50-year-old constantly oscillates between praising Vladimir Putin’s policy and acerbic criticism of the war waged in Ukraine. But the attitude of Westerners and the harshness of the sanctions revolt him: “The attempt to collectively place the responsibility for what is happening on all the inhabitants of Russia is a typical Nazi gesture! »
“Lena, what’s happening to us?” »
Back on the heights of Odessa, in the small house of Anton’s mother. Lena wants to talk about her husband’s best friend, witness at their wedding, Youri, a Russian. At the beginning of the conflict, the couple joined him: “He said to us in a light tone: ‘What’s the mess with you?’says Lena, very agitated. My husband replied, “It’s war! Your country is waging war on my country!” Youri got married. And he said, “No, come on, it’s a little practice!” When we talked to him about it again, he simply replied: “I hope it will be over soon.”
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And then there is Tatiana, his childhood friend. Of Russian nationality, she grew up in the Luhansk region, in the Donbass, today under the control of Moscow forces. “We were in class together, she was like a sister to me, but she also refused to hear about the war until the last few days”says Lena.
At the beginning of March, Tatiana sent him a message: ” How are you ? How are you doing ? » She’s worried : “They cut all the independent channels (from Russia), nothing is known. » In her small living room, Elena suddenly kneels on the tiled floor and exclaims as if her childhood friend had suddenly appeared in the room: “You are responsible, it’s all your fault!” It is your silence that has led to this situation! »
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Lena straightens up immediately, and hands her phone. On a message, his “sister” Tatiana writes: “Fear, horror, shame. These have been my feelings for several days. I pray and I hope. How is it possible ? For the word “war”, they put us in prison. Lena, where are we? What’s happening to us? »
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CHRONOLOGY. Two countries closely linked
► 1991. Russia and Ukraine become independent, with the breakup of the USSR.
► 2013. Ukraine renounces to sign an association agreement with the European Union and “relaunch an active dialogue with Moscow”. This reversal led to major pro-European demonstrations in kyiv and the occupation of Maidan Square.
► 2014. Following the 2014 revolution, Crimea was annexed by Russia and a civil war broke out in the east of the country with pro-Russian separatists.
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Mariupol subjected to terrible bombardments
Ukraine was still trying to establish Thursday, March 17 the toll of a Russian bombing that occurred the day before on a theater in Mariupol. According to the town hall, “more than a thousand” people were in the establishment’s air-raid shelter at the time. A deputy, Serguiï Tarouta, claimed on Facebook that people came out alive from the rubble and that the shelter had held. But the General Prosecutor’s Office of Ukraine indicated that it was for the time being “impossible to establish the exact number of victims, because bombardments continue permanently”. The Ukrainians estimate that more than 2,100 people have been killed in three weeks in this strategic port on the Sea of Azov, which was subjected to a terrible siege.