Tag: Russia

War upended Natalia’s life a year ago. She left the violence in Mariupol, a city in southeast Ukraine, with her family, and entered Russia.

In order to go to Nakhodka, a seaside village on the Sea of Japan near North Korea, she and many other Ukrainians were pushed by Russian officials to travel 4,000 miles by train via Siberia. Compared to the front lines, Alaska is closer.

Going to Russia was the only choice for many residents of Mariupol at the time because there wasn’t a reliable escape route to territory controlled by the Ukrainians. Although Natalia claims she was not coerced into leaving, Ukraine claims that these migrants were forcibly removed. “It was a decision we made,” she said.

In the absence of a reliable evacuation corridor to Ukrainian-held territory, going to Russia was the only option for many people in Mariupol at that time. Ukraine describes these refugees as forcibly deported, though Natalia says no one forced her to leave. “It was our decision,” she told CNN by phone from Russia’s far east, where she has resettled since arriving last spring.

Now, as Russia’s war in Ukraine grinds into a second year, she and others lead an uncertain existence, unsure if, or when, they will ever be able to return home or be welcome when they get there.

Over the course of many months, CNN has managed to reach a handful of Ukrainians through a group chat run by Russian volunteers for current and former residents of a hotel used as a temporary shelter, where they stayed while searching for longer-term work and housing. CNN is not using their full names in this story for privacy and security reasons.

Many of the new arrivals in Nakhodka, in Russia’s Primorskiy Krai region, were reluctant to say much about their circumstances or share their opinions, but others shared enough to get a clearer snapshot of life in Russia’s far east and how Ukrainians there are adjusting.

Some offered mildly pro-Russian views, others declined to answer questions about the war, while some even gave scathing criticism of Ukraine. No one directly criticized Moscow but, of course, it’s not clear how freely people felt they could speak.

The United Nations estimates more than 2.8 million Ukrainians have taken refuge in Russia over the past year. Some – largely those who could afford it – have transited through Russia to other countries in Europe, and many have even made it back to Ukraine.

International law prohibits forcible transfers of people and stipulates that evacuees should be moved home as soon as hostilities have ceased. CNN requested comment from the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs on Ukraine’s allegation that its citizens have been forcibly deported to Russia, and on the situation for Ukrainians now living in Russia’s far east, but has not received a response.

Their mere presence in Russia is ultimately a win for the Kremlin, according to Nathaniel Raymond, executive director of Yale University’s Humanitarian Research Lab, who has done extensive research on the mass migration of Ukrainians to Russia since the full-scale war began. Russia, he says, needs more people.

“In many parts of the country, they don’t have enough citizens to make those municipalities function,” he said. There is also “a propaganda benefit, positioning these people as somehow, willingly seeking citizenship in Russia, which fits this broader narrative that Putin and the Kremlin [are pushing]… trying to rebrand the war as saving Ukrainians from purported Nazis.”

Russia has tried several experiments to attract people to its resource-rich far east, including from ex-Soviet states. Now, state programs are being repurposed to accommodate fleeing Ukrainians. Those who agree to go to Russia’s far east are promised a cash payment, housing assistance, Russian citizenship and potentially even free land.

The cost of living in Primorskiy Krai, whose main city is Vladivostok, is the 11th-highest in Russia, more expensive even than Moscow and St. Petersburg regions, according to official figures. This is due in part to the rate of new home-building lagging behind the national average.

Natalia, who was an office worker in Mariupol, has now found work in a local food-processing plant. She told CNN she’s struggling with the cost of rent. She hopes to find a job that better matches her skills, but for now it’s all she can find. She misses home, but at least the maritime climate reminds her of coastal Mariupol. Her husband and daughter are with her, and she says she has no family remaining in Ukraine.

“Nothing’s changed (in the past year) except the place,” she said. “But I no longer have a job that I love and a home I love.”

Russian authorities took her Ukrainian passport and swapped it with a Russian one, Natalia says. The UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights says that “no one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality” and that everyone has a right to leave any country, even their own.

When Natalia spoke to CNN, she seemed resigned to making the relocation work for her family long term. Under the terms of her resettlement, she must live there for at least three years, or be forced to repay any state benefits her family has received.

Ukrainian people who have signed on for the years-long program are in “basically a degree of indentured servitude,” Raymond said. “Being in a contract, so to speak, for three years puts them in a very vulnerable position.” It’s critical to recall that their core rights under international law mean “they have a right to return, and they have a right to return safely,” regardless of any agreement, he said.

Natalia is allowed to travel freely but says she won’t go back to Ukraine. “Those who left for Russia are immediately considered criminals by the Ukrainian authorities, so I am forbidden to go there,” she told CNN by phone. “I don’t want to take the risk,” she added, even if she still had a Ukrainian passport.

Others who spoke to CNN also expressed reluctance to return. “We will stay in Russia. I don’t even want to think about Ukraine,” Valeriya, another Ukrainian who ended up in Nakhodka, told CNN by text.

“At this point, the absence of clarity is the biggest problem” when it comes to Ukrainians in Russia, and whether they are free to return home, Raymond said.

“There is, understandably, within Ukraine an absolute outrage against those who are perceived as collaborators. But the fact of the matter is that we are dealing here with a civilian population … that was seeking refuge in a time of war,” he said. Raymond says there have been local examples in Ukraine of reprisals against perceived collaborators – even against those who merely fled east because it was their only way out of the war zone.

Kyiv, he says, must make it crystal clear that Ukrainians citizens who ended up in Russia can come home, otherwise, many likely won’t. And that only serves Russia’s interests.

The Ukrainian Ministry of Reintegration referred CNN’s questions to the Ukrainian Prosecutor General’s office. In a statement, it told CNN that it recognizes that for many people “the only safe passage was through Russia. Of course, they are not considered collaborators […] They need to get to any third country and address a local Ukrainian consulate. It will issue them Ukrainian documents to return to Ukraine.” It’s less clear whether those Ukrainians who remain in Russia long term will be welcomed back without issue.

By law, Ukraine considers those who publicly deny occupation, assist the Russian military in Ukraine, or even call for support of Russian actions, to be collaborators and liable for criminal penalties.

Oksana, another of the Ukrainians in Nakhodka who says she now has both Ukrainian and Russian passports, says she would like to return to Mariupol to visit, but only if it’s part of Russia.

“Somehow things are better in Russia – quieter, whereas it is a total mess in Ukraine. It is just unclear what it is that our government is doing,” she told CNN by phone, adding: “I am for peace all over the world.”

Fellow Ukrainian Marina wrote in a text message that after three years, “We will see. It depends on the job and material well-being. So far, it’s not very easy.”

Raymond suspects that many of those who ended up in Russia’s far east are less affluent, and therefore less likely to take the long, expensive trip back to Ukraine should they want to go. War after war, the same pattern can be seen – those with the least money have the fewest options, he says.

“It is those who don’t have the means to flee through Europe, through the Baltics, that often get stuck in situations where they can be exploited.”

The United States’ National Security Council declined to say whether Ukraine should do more to assure citizens who fled to Russia that they can re-enter with no issue. But it said the US is providing assistance to identify and locate Ukrainian refugees who have been detained and interrogated in Russia and is imposing sanctions and visa restrictions on Russian officials and companies in order to hold Russia accountable for what the US describes as forcible deportations.

Oksana says Russia was never part of her plan, even as she took shelter in a squalid basement shelter in Mariupol while the city was besieged by Russian forces.

“I was going to stay and die there, were it not for my daughter who said, ‘Mom, I don’t want to eat like this and die in the basement.’” With Oksana’s brother already in Russia’s far east, they decided to go.

Oksana says the volunteers have been helpful and that although some locals have suggested she “go back,” others have encouraged her to stay – which, for now, is what she intends to do.

The extremely sensitive, leaked Military documents that were published on social media provide a negative US assessment of the situation in Ukraine, pointing out Ukraine’s air defense and armament vulnerabilities and foreseeing a protracted stalemate in the conflict.

As Kiev gets ready for a springtime counteroffensive against Russia, the documents, which appear to be from February and March, go into great depth on many of Ukraine’s alleged military weaknesses.

A number of the top-secret documents warn that Ukraine’s medium-range air defenses to shield front-line soldiers will be “totally depleted by May 23,” implying that Russia may soon achieve aerial superiority and Ukraine may no longer be able to gather ground forces for a counteroffensive.

The documents also underscore lingering problems with Russia’s own military offensive, predicting that the result will be a stalemate between the two sides for the foreseeable future.

“Russia’s grinding campaign of attrition in the Donbas region is likely heading toward a stalemate, thwarting Mosco’s goal to capture the entire region in 2023,” states one of the classified documents.

Officials familiar with the situation tell CNN the documents appear to be part of a daily intelligence briefing deck prepared for the Pentagon’s senior leaders, including Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley.

The leaking of the documents, many of which are marked top secret, represents a major national security breach, and the Justice Department has launched a criminal investigation into who may have leaked them while the Pentagon is investigating how the leak impacts US national security. In addition to the assessment of the Ukraine war, the documents include intelligence gathered on allies and adversaries alike.

Retired Lt. Gen. Mark Hertling, a CNN national security and military analyst, said that the challenges Ukraine faces with its planned counteroffensive have been clear for weeks, including the need to integrate new equipment and new troops and ensure that a sufficient supply chain is in place. He did not think that the document leak would alter Kyiv’s plans.

“I haven’t seen anything in the documents I’ve seen that would cause me as a commander to change my plans,” Hertling said. “It’s given some information to the Russians in terms of unit locations and ammo and equipment capabilities, but I would venture to say the Russians already knew all that anyway.”

In many ways, the assessment of the Ukraine war is similar to what US officials have said publicly, as top Biden administration officials have said the conflict is likely to drag on for months, if not longer.

But the detailed and unflinching assessment of the war is laid out starkly in the briefing slides about the challenges Ukraine faces despite its successes more than a year into the war.

An official from a country part of the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing agreement with the US told CNN previously that it was alarming to see the leaked Ukraine war information handicapping the country on the battlefield.

“Gains for Ukraine will be hard to accomplish, but it does not help to have the private US assessment pointing to a likely yearlong stalemate revealed publicly,” the official said.

Publicly, US and Ukrainian officials have downplayed the significance of the classified documents.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken has reassured Ukraine of the United States’ “ironclad” support for the country, following the Pentagon document leaks, according to Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba.

During a call on Tuesday Blinken “reaffirmed the ironclad U.S. support and vehemently rejected any attempts to cast doubt on Ukraine’s capacity to win on the battlefield,” Kuleba wrote Tuesday on Twitter.

“The U.S. remains Ukraine’s trustworthy partner, focused on advancing our victory and securing a just peace,” Kuleba said.

At a press conference Tuesday, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin that the department will “turn over every rock until we find the source” of the leaked intelligence documents.

CNN has reviewed 53 leaked documents, all of which appear to have been produced between mid-February and early March.

At least one of the documents appears to have been altered, CNN previously reported, which listed Russian and Ukrainian casualty numbers and more than halved the number of Russian deaths before being spread on pro-Russian Telegram channels.

Still, US officials have acknowledged the bulk of the documents appear to be genuine. Ukraine has already altered some of its military plans because of the leak, a source close to Zelensky told CNN.

“These documents are static. They’re a picture of a specific time. Both United States and Ukraine have the ability to modify what they’re doing and how they’re approaching this issue, and we certainly have plenty of time for Ukraine to do so,” House Intelligence Chairman Mike Turner told CNN’s Jake Tapper on Monday.

Additional documents have also emerged. The Washington Post reported Monday on another leaked document with a bleak assessment from February that challenges with troops, ammunition and equipment could cause Ukraine to fall “well short” of its goals in its planned spring counteroffensive.

A document from February states that the US assesses Ukraine can generate 12 combat brigades for the spring counteroffensive, including three trained in Ukraine and nine trained and equipped by the US. Six of the brigades would be ready by the end of March and the remaining six by the end of April, according to the document.

The leaked documents include a detailed maps of battlefield positions, statistics on the number of troops killed and wounded and estimates of tanks, fighter jets and other weaponry that’s been fielded as well as destroyed.

One slide provides a timeline for when Ukraine’s ground will be frozen, when it will be muddy and when it will be favorable to move through.

There are assessments of Ukrainian forces around Bakhmut, where some of the fiercest fighting between the two sides has taken place this year. In one update in February, the intelligence assessment includes details on villages where Ukraine’s military had withdrawn and which positions it was still controlling.