Olga Onuch (Онух)

The evacuation of people from Oleshky has finished. Buses with people are finally in Ukraine. And I cannot stop thinking that just five years ago, these people lived peaceful lives, raised their children, tended their gardens, and were happy. Then Russian soldiers came to their land.  People were hunted with drones, isolated and starved, and their homes were flooded when the Russians blew up the Kakhovka dam. Throughout all these years, they watched their neighbors and relatives die before their eyes. It reached the point where people could no longer bury their dead, and dogs tore apart their bodies.  After months of relentless horror, Russia finally allowed them to be evacuated. It took the intervention of the Pope, the First Lady of the United States, persistent appeals from the UN, a hunger strike by the Vice-President of the European Parliament, and a months-long campaign by Ukrainian volunteers. And now these exhausted people are leaving their homes, the graves of their loved ones, and their entire lives behind, traveling by bus into the unknown.  These people leave the land of their ancestors. And before long, Russia will settle the occupied territories with Russians, who will gladly move into other people’s homes from which their owners were driven out. This is a policy of artificially changing the demographic composition of the population, which Russia has pursued throughout all the years of the war, starting with the occupation of Crimea. Russian propaganda portrays this evacuation as a display of the Russians’ lofty humanism. But it is nothing but cynicism.  The case of Oleshky shows exactly what Russian occupation is. And it also demonstrates that Russia can commit the most horrific crimes in the occupied territories right before the eyes of the entire world. Video Marian Kushnir