Putin’s “denazification” pushes Ukraine’s minorities into exile

One of the reasons given by the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, for invading Ukraine was the need to liberate the country from the yoke of a supposedly ultra-nationalist and fascist government.

But the Russian military offensive against Ukraine is truncating millions of lives also among ethnic, religious and linguistic minorities who in theory should benefit from a war that the Kremlin sells as an operation of “denazification”.

Thousands of Ukrainians of Jewish, Tatar, Romanian, Bulgarian and even Russian origin cross the Romanian border every day fleeing the bombs and missiles that Russian troops launch against Ukrainian cities in the name of liberating these minorities.

“What the Russians are doing is worse than fascism”, says Viktoriia Klymenko, head of the Department of Pediatrics at the Kharkov National Medical University, while queuing to enter Romanian territory.

Kharkiv is a city located in eastern Ukraine where more than half of the population identifies as Russian. Its main hospital has been bombed by the Russian army.

Shelter in Israel

In addition to Ukrainian citizens from predominantly Russian-speaking areas such as Kharkiv and Odessa, a steady trickle of Jews from all over Ukraine also arrive at the Romanian border.

Some also have Israeli nationality, which allows them to cross the border even if they are males of fighting age.

“From Bucharest we will travel to Israel and then we will decide what to do”, says Dmytro, a 28-year-old from Kropyvnytskyi, in southwestern Ukraine, who has arrived in Romania with his brother Serguei and other relatives, some of them minors.

At the same time, the Russian invasion of Ukraine has prompted thousands to consider starting a new life in Israel, accelerating their plans to make “aliyah”, the name given in Hebrew to the immigration of Diaspora Jews to the Jewish state.

“I was planning to make aliyah next year; I always wanted to go live in Israel with my family, but not under these circumstances”, says Rina Dunko in front of the tent of the American-Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) that welcomes Jewish and non-Jewish refugees as they enter Romania .

More than 4,000 Israelis

A native of the city of Kamianske -on the banks of the Dnieper River-, Dunko is a computer engineering student, traveling with her mother, her sister, two nephews and two cats.

Beside Rina, dozens of Ukrainian women, children and elderly of Jewish origin applaud excitedly as the JDC representative for Romania, Israel Sabag, welcomes them in Hebrew, Russian and Ukrainian.

“Since the war began, some 4,000 Israelis have crossed the borders between Ukraine and Romania,” says David Saranga, the Israeli ambassador in Bucharest, who have moved to the border to supervise the departure of refugees.

“In Bucharest, where the majority of Jews who want to emigrate to Israel arrive, there are currently between 300 and 400 people,” explains Saranga.

The diplomat will receive a minibus on Tuesday at the border with a teenager and ten Ukrainian children suffering from cancer and other serious illnesses and who managed to flee from Kiev with their parents.

From the border, they will be flown by private plane to Israel, where they will be treated at the Schneider Pediatric Center in Petah Tikva, near Tel Aviv.

Romanians, Bulgarians

But also hundreds of Ukrainians of Romanian origin pass daily across the border, where many will wait in relatives’ homes for the Russian attacks against Ukraine to cease.

Further afield, Ukrainians of Bulgarian origin must travel, who are met at the border by soldiers who have arrived from Sofia to organize their transfer.

“Most of the passengers are what is known as Bulgarian besarabians,” says one of those soldiers.

And Turkish Tatars

Among the booths that flank the road through which you enter Romania from Ukraine, the red flag with the star and crescent of Turkey stands out.

The Turkish government announced on Monday that it has repatriated some 12,000 citizens who lived in Ukraine.

Ankara also helps citizens of Turkic republics such as Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan reach Turkey.

In addition, hundreds of Ukrainian women, children and elders of Tatar origin pass through these borders, say workers from AFAD, the Turkish emergency management agency.

Thousands of Ukrainian Tatars fled the Crimean peninsula to other parts of Ukraine when Russia annexed the territory in 2014.

Now, the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine is forcing them to flee the cities where they found refuge eight years ago, too.