In March 2022, one month after Russian President Vladimir Putin’s forces invaded Ukraine, Denys D. and his family decided to pack up and flee their besieged homeland. They left Mariupol in two cars and traveled circuitous routes on war-ravaged roads, periodically breaking into the children’s piggy bank to buy gas, a commodity whose price had increased tenfold since the outbreak of hostilities. At numerous Russian checkpoints, they were stopped, searched, and scrutinized, their documents thoroughly checked, their vehicles scoured. Each time, before continuing on their way, they had to give the Russian soldiers a gift — money, cigarettes, even instant coffee. At one filtration camp, Denys joined a hundred men in a small room with no food, water, or bathroom and waited to be interviewed. When at last his name was called, he was seen by two investigators who examined his body for tattoos or bruises typical of military men. They then studied his phone for any suspicious texts and compromising photos.
One innocuous name listed among Denys’s contacts changed the tone and the tactics in the room. The investigators believed that “Nika Azov” might be a female sniper in Ukraine’s Azov battalion. In fact, it was just the auto-service center Denys took his car to. He was subjected to an intense grilling, the repeated rounds of questions designed to wear him down and trip him up. After finally convincing his interrogators that he had no affiliation with the army, Denys was allowed to go, provided he first coughed up some money. He showed the men his empty wallet, and so they got nothing. Little did they know that there was a hundred-dollar bill folded eight times in his child’s jacket pocket — the last of Denys’s money to get his family across his occupied country and over the border to safety.
Denys’s story is just one of many included in a new book about the catastrophic impact of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Appalled at the relentless brutality and suffering his country was unleashing, award-winning Russian journalist and writer Valery Panyushkin began to collect the personal testimonies of ordinary people whose lives had been turned upside down by the conflict. Displaced: Civilians in the Russia-Ukraine War follows individuals on either side and from all walks of life. By showcasing unique struggles and shared plights, Panyushkin highlights not only the scale and form of Putin’s aggression but also the trials and horrors faced by those deemed collateral damage.
The book starts with the opening salvos in the early hours of Feb. 24, 2022. Viktoria, a manager at Nokia, gets a rude awakening in a hospital in Kyiv. She and her 15-year-old daughter, who has had surgery on her leg, are instructed to go home. It will be a slow and perilous journey, as her daughter can only walk with crutches. In the same city, Yulia, a psychologist and a feminist, also wakes to the sound of explosions. She used to work in Russia but has recently relocated to Kyiv, no longer able to tolerate, as she puts it, “that vague but nonetheless detectable feeling of un-freedom in the Moscow air.” Later this morning, she has a photo session scheduled for a project on violence against women. Will she be a victim of the violence erupting outside her window?
In the first days of the war, some people try to keep calm and carry on. “They continue to go about their everyday routine automatically,” Panyushkin writes, “the same way a drowning person tries to inhale under water.” In Odesa, curtain salesman Vladimir drives to a client and arranges his samples in front of her. “Do you really think now is a good time to pick out blinds?” she tells him. “Our windows could be shattered at any moment.” In Kyiv, Marina visits an overcrowded supermarket with her young children to stock up on staples such as rice, sugar, and canned goods. When she gets back to their multistory apartment building, her daughter reminds her that it isn’t safe to use the elevator. Marina hauls her shopping up to the 16th floor. When she prepares a meal, everyone, including herself, is too scared to eat it. The next day, they are forced to leave the city, abandoning almost all their food supplies.
Some people can’t leave because they don’t have enough gas. Some who do try to leave are a lot less fortunate than Denys and lose more than their patience and their dignity. Panyushkin devotes chapters to international organizations like Israel4Ukraine and Rubikus that facilitate ways of escape and resettlement for desperate Ukrainians. We learn of resourceful rescue operations for special cases: two elderly women and their 19 cats and two dogs, a woman with cerebral palsy trapped in a basement, all 52 residents of a nursing home. We hear of the good deeds carried out at humanitarian centers and refugee camps but also of volunteers burning out from stress and fatigue after a week. “The human capacity for active altruism and empathy is limited,” Panyushkin notes.
But his book singles out a number of remarkable women who have worked tirelessly to benefit others. In Budapest, Lilya and Nastya set up a school and summer camp so that Ukrainian refugee teachers can start working again and Ukrainian children can continue with their studies. In Russia, Dasha is on call around the clock to help evacuate Ukrainians like Denys. Every day and all day, Alexandra petitions for funds for food, medication, and blankets for Ukrainians living with HIV. And Lena, a Russian journalist, puts her livelihood, and indeed her life, at risk by writing articles about Russian war crimes.
As Panyushkin catalogs such crimes — the bombing of a truck transporting teachers from an orphanage, a mortar attack on a convoy of buses that kills volunteers and destroys humanitarian aid — each itemized atrocity serves as a blunt reminder that despite all the stories involving the kindness of strangers, courage under fire, heroic self-sacrifice, and lucky escapes, this is primarily a book about the misfortunes of war. Scattered throughout are numerous accounts of pain and hardship, of trying to endure hunger, cold, and bombardment and overcome fear. The grimmest details relate to those caught up in the carnage and chaos in the fallen city of Mariupol, the site of the fiercest battles and most widespread devastation. There, doctors lacking medical equipment operate on patients in schools and post offices with hammers and power drills. People take shelter in basements and drink water from the sewer. A 5-year-old boy runs for cover in a building and is never found again.
All of which makes Displaced a sobering read but also an essential one. Some readers will complain that it falls short for offering an incomplete picture: Panyushkin only covers the early stages of a conflict, which is grinding on with no end in sight. However, even if the book amounts to a snapshot of a still-unfolding tragedy, what a captivating snapshot it is. Panyushkin has created a collage of vivid and varied oral accounts. Each one contains harsh truths or striking fragmentary details: People bury loved ones in their vegetable gardens or in city parks; a toddler is deposited at a hospital door with a note saying “We’re going to fight for Ukraine. Please, take care of Seryozha”; a shell shatters an elderly couple’s greenhouses, leaving their backyard strewn with broken glass, “and when the sun rises, it will sparkle like an ad for Swarovski crystal.”
At each end of his book, Panyushkin shares his own experiences. At the outset, he discloses that the war has caused a rift between him and his father, a dyed-in-the-wool patriot who has swallowed Putin’s propaganda about the sinister intentions and evil depredations of NATO and the West, and Russia’s valiant quest to “liberate” Ukraine of neo-Nazis. In his final chapter, Panyushkin explains how he no longer feels comfortable in Russia, where critics of the Kremlin and opponents of the war either go missing or face lengthy prison sentences. “For three months now, I’ve been writing about people leaving their homeland,” he informs us, “and now the time has come for me to do the same.”
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Malcolm Forbes has written for the Economist, the Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post. He lives in Edinburgh.