A man clears glass shards from his shop on October 1 in Kupiansk, Ukraine, after the city was liberated from Russian occupation.
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A man clears glass shards from his shop on October 1 in Kupiansk, Ukraine, after the city was liberated from Russian occupation.
Image Paula Bronstein / Getty
KUPIANSK, Ukraine – Volodymyr Tsyba is offended.
Sipping homemade wine, Tsyba recounted how four intelligence agents showed up at his house on the outskirts of Kupiansk early last month, just days after the northeastern Ukrainian town was liberated from occupation of Russia.
They are looking for Russian collaborators.
“‘You are these people?” he said that agents questioned him and his wife. “Get your stuff. Come to us.”
The agents are part of the Security Service of Ukraine, known as the SBU. They had badges. They have weapons.
“It was scary,” his wife Svitlana said.
Volodymyr and Svitlana Tsyba speak at their home in Hrushivka, Ukraine, on October 18. They say they have been detained by Ukrainian intelligence officials looking for Russian collaborators.
Franco Ordoñez / NPR
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Volodymyr and Svitlana Tsyba speak at their home in Hrushivka, Ukraine, on October 18. They say they have been detained by Ukrainian intelligence officials looking for Russian collaborators.
Franco Ordoñez / NPR
Officers drove them to the police station, where they questioned the couple for two hours. They pressed Svitlana about her job as a secretary for the villages around Kupiansk.
They want to know why she continues to work for the Russians. She told them she didn’t feel like herself. She said she was simply continuing her work and helping her neighbors endure a very difficult reality.
As a secretary, she handles all the legal paperwork for civil life – wills, marriage certificates. But during the occupation, she was also collecting the names of qualified villagers who could receive a payment of 10,000 Russian rubles, which is a little over $160.
“I understand that we should have realized with our actions… maybe by helping people we are also helping the occupants,” she said.
She did not blame the SBU for questioning her. They are doing their job, she said. And, she points out, they let her go. She said they told her they didn’t think she broke any laws.
But she doesn’t understand why her neighbors – who she says she’s trying to help – are reporting her as a collaborator. She said they asked to be included in the Russian payments.
“In our village, there isn’t a single person who doesn’t take that money,” she said. “But I understand. Everyone had to survive. I don’t blame anyone. But how guilty am I?”
As towns recover from occupation, residents see their neighbors differently
In recently liberated towns along the front lines of the war in Ukraine, authorities have focused on reaching survivors, documenting war crimes and starting the process of rebuilding homes and structures. building.
But another challenge that is emerging is how the months of Russian occupation have ripped through the social fabric of these towns and villages.
The neighbors no longer know who they can trust. They don’t know who the collaborators are.
Andriy Besedin, acting mayor of Kupiansk, called it a “big problem”.
His town was liberated on 9 September as part of a major Ukrainian counter-offensive across the east and south. It was a strategically important location along the Oskil River, with a bridge and railway depot.
The residents experienced terrible turmoil.
Refugees run across a destroyed bridge in Kupiansk on October 1.
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Refugees run across a destroyed bridge in Kupiansk on October 1.
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First, the Russians invaded the town just days after the fighting began in February. Officials say that Russian forces detained and tortured many residents.
During the occupation, people were simply trying to survive. As the months passed, resistance turned into adaptation.
Now, after more than six months of occupation, the Russians are gone. The Ukrainians are back in control. And residents, once again, are having to adjust.
Besedin says some people feel betrayed by their neighbors and colleagues. Some of the smallest acts of cooperation with the Russian occupiers were interpreted as signs of cooperation.
Those convicted face up to 15 years in prison, based on new laws passed after the war began.
Schools and hospitals are slow to heal
Other residents blamed themselves for not resisting the Russians enough, Besedin said.
“It will take time,” he said. “People need to recover psychologically. And we as the government need to give them the conditions so that they can understand that Ukraine cares about them.”
Andriy Besedin, acting mayor of Kupiansk, discussed the village’s challenges outside the local hospital on October 18. He said mistrust is a big problem that needs to be faced immediately.
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Andriy Besedin, acting mayor of Kupiansk, discussed the village’s challenges outside the local hospital on October 18. He said mistrust is a big problem that needs to be faced immediately.
Franco Ordoñez / NPR
He notes that the challenge is particularly great in schools in Ukraine. Anti-Russian teachers now refuse to work with colleagues who have accepted teaching contracts in the Russian educational system.
Some teachers who have taken the Russian positions now say they are not aware of the potential consequences and feel they are simply helping the children.
Tatiana Shmyhyrska, the principal of the largest primary school in the nearby village of Shevenchoke, admits there are varying degrees of cooperation, but says the teachers have come to Russia for training – and begin the school year according to the system. Russian tradition – should not be allowed to teach Ukrainian children.
And she is uncomfortable being asked by Ukrainian officials to gather information about possible collaborators.
“Why the situation is so worrying is because it feels like they’re trying to push the blame onto us,” she said.
There are similar challenges at the Kupiansk hospital, where doctors are pressured to treat Russian soldiers.
Dr Yevgeniy Sinko, head of the hospital’s medical department, said he was held hostage and tortured by Russian troops after refusing to hand over the hospital to the Russians.
But he said that some doctors have agreed to treat the Russian soldiers. He believes that they should not be judged unfairly.
“Under the Geneva Convention, we have to deal with them,” he said. “We are doctors here.”
Dr. Yevgeniy Sinko inside a hospital ambulance in Kupiansk on October 18. He said he had been held hostage by Russian soldiers for more than two months.
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Dr. Yevgeniy Sinko inside a hospital ambulance in Kupiansk on October 18. He said he had been held hostage by Russian soldiers for more than two months.
Franco Ordoñez / NPR
Sitting at the kitchen table, Volodymyr and Svitlana Tsyba said they were ready to move on, but admitted they were more reserved with their neighbors than they were before the war.
“I just see it as a different life situation,” says Svitlana.
Volodymyr is the less cautious. He insists he is not someone who always holds grudges. But, he said, he has a good memory.
“Now I know who I will fight and who I will not fight,” he said. Even among my friends. “
