Andrei Stryzhak: I don’t support any of the parties at war; I help the injured

To pay for medicines that are being sent to Donbas Belarusans donate sums of money from 2 euros to more than 200 euros. And each pack of suture materials has a name behind it.

In late January – the beginning of February a Homel citizen Andrei Stryzhak visited ATO-zone of Donetsk and was bringing humanitarian aid there. Now he is planning a new visit and raises funds for injured Ukrainians through social networks.

A correspondent of EuroBelarus Information Service got into contact with Andrei in order to find out the details about the work of the volunteers in the ATO-zone.

- Andrei, please tell about your visit to the frontline with two Ukrainian volunteers. How long did it last, and what places did you manage to visit?

- I was a part of a small humanitarian convoy organized by our Ukrainian colleagues – Aleksandra Aleshina and Olga Galchenko. They have been involved in volunteer work since the times of Maidan, where there was a need to provide first-aid points formed in Mikhailovsky Cathedral and other places. Thus, it is quite logical that they decided to help people in ATO-zone.

However, the specifics are that my Ukrainian colleagues also help the army, and apart from medicines, they also bring other loads to ATO-zone. Whereas our Belarusan part of raising funds serves only for buying medicines that we bring to regional hospitals of Donetsk area.

We stayed in ATO-zone for about two days, visiting Krasnoarmeisk and Dimitrov. The furthest point was in the effective area of DPR’s artillery, where we delivered warm clothes for orphans in Kamyshovsk, the suburbs of Selidovo town, which is 30 km away from the frontline. There is no heating there now and no warm and cold water.

- During your new visit you are planning to resolve the problem with children from the orphanage in Kamyshovsk by “pulling about those who are responsible for children’s evacuation”. Who does the evacuation of children from the DPR’s territory depend on? And where are they to be evacuated to – to Russia or to Ukraine?

- Unfortunately, I don’t have enough information, as there is no possibility for the official Ukrainian authorities to reach DPR’s or LPR’s territories; so orphanages are evacuated either to Russia or further from the frontline, deeper into Ukraine, or just left at the same place.

Psychoneurological halls of residence and children’s homes are dependent on the authorities and cannot be evacuated on their own. This situation is also applied for the penal jurisdictions. Recently at the territory of Lugansk area a colony was destroyed during the hostilities, and prisoners tried to reach some other place on their own so that the escape is not imputed to them.

As to “pulling about” someone: Ukraine’s bureaucratic system is quite inert, which is its huge drawback; however, we constantly signal about the critical situation for unprotected children. And for now it is hard to say whether something will be done on the part of the authorities; however, we have done everything we could do.

- You raise money for medicines in Belarus, but buy medicines in Ukraine because you have no car to transport them. Do you talk with the injured ATO fighters when you attend hospitals?

- There is a specific character about the presence in this zone. The thing is that the cities that are now under the control of Kiev authorities are quite loyal. And there are certain security measures for being present in the ATO-zone, one of which is to move to another place as soon as possible after delivering humanitarian aid. If one stays for a longer time, it might cause problems with the local citizens, who are not 100% loyal to volunteers or cars with Kiev numbers.

We didn’t manage to talk with the injured; however, we talked a lot with the surgeons and heads of hospital departments. The situation there is very tense even when the doctors describe it as calm times.

- Who did you meet there but for the doctors? In order to describe the catastrophic situation of Donbas citizens the details are very important.

- In Kuharovo town by chance I met Vita Ivanova, a wife of a Belarusan citizen Dmitry Poloiko, who was arrested by the KGB for the alleged participation in hostilities in the ranks of the “Donbas” battalion. After talking to her it appeared that everything is complicated because the Ukrainian authorities work little with the local population. Ukrainian TV-channels are not translated there; a forwarder is in Donetsk, so all TV-channels broadcast DPR’s programmes – propaganda with fakes and disinformation.

There is also a problem that many officials and functionaries, who were in power before the so-called referendum of May 11, remained the same; they just switched places. These people, actually, were the ones who organized referendum.

There is also a problem of local clergy, who also often support DPR.

- How difficult is it for volunteers to get to the ATO-zone? Is it possible to do it privately, without convoy?

- It is becoming increasingly harder to get there, as Ukraine’s government has recently made these frontline areas a border zone. However, since Aleshina and Galchenko are also working with the military men, we were given “green light”. So this is the big problem if we go there on our own.

There are also some peculiarities of movement: night movement is prohibited; besides, it is prohibited to open windows and stop at roadsides; one should always look who is overtaking you on the road and how often.

- Now you are planning to visit the frontline zone again. How much money have you already collected for medicines and how do Belarusans react to you appeal to help the injured Ukrainians in social networks?

- A new visit will be organized in late February and will last exactly as long as the previous one.

We raise funds the way we used to do last time. Let me emphasize that they only serve for buying medicines. And this is a principal stance for me: I don’t support any of the parties at war; I help those who came to a difficult situation due to the military conflict at the east of Ukraine.

For now we collected about one thousand dollars for our visit. The sum is changing all the time; people add some money after reading the announcement on Facebook.

If someone wants to help, one can always contact me through my profile in Facebook where all the contacts are. To pay for medicines for Donbas Belarusans donate sums of money from 2 euros to more than 200 euros. And each pack of suture materials has a name behind it; a desire to help, concrete feelings and emotions.

- You thanked Belarusans, Lithuanians, Kazakhs, and Ukrainians for help. Do Lithuania’s and Kazakhstan’s citizens respond to your appeals as well?

- Yes, I have quite wide range of people I know all over the world; people read my profile. And it happens that when I meet with friends in Vilnius they help us because of solidarity.

- Why can’t you stay at home? You have a little son Alexey; and in Donbas you might get shot and never come back to him.

- That’s a good question, and I’m being asked it a lot. You know, when the entire situation with Maidan started, when Zhyzneuski got killed, I made a serious decision: to pass all these moments through myself. I also was at Maidan, I am also a Belarusan, and I could also have been killed as he was. And who would be helping my family then? We were raising funds for Zhyzneuski’s family then.

The same happens here. There is a concept of conscious risk – an understanding of how much do you risk by doing certain things. And while passing this situation through myself I understood: I could be much more useful to people thanks to my social capital – contacts and connections – if I would be going to the ATO-zone with the minimal risk for me instead of sitting in Belarus and makings reposts and putting “likes” to some statuses about Ukraine. It is an equally native country for me; I am a one-third Ukrainian, I have many relatives and friends in Ukraine, and I feel mental connection with this country no less than with Belarus.

Many people say that it is a foreign war for Belarusans; whereas I believe that no one is insured against the repeat of this scenario in our country. Secondly, this is a huge experience in organizing such actions, and taking into account the situation in the world politics, it might, unfortunately, be useful in Belarus.