The price of freedom. How much and what Ukrainians have to pay to leave Russian occupation.

Why do Ukrainians still remain living in territories controlled by Russia? The reasons are varied: some lack the means to leave, some stay to protect their property, and some care for elderly or sick relatives.

Not all families dare to leave – it's a risky step, especially in terms of safety. It requires caution and extensive preparation. But some families do decide to take the risk. How many? Currently unknown due to the difficulty of collecting data in Russian-controlled territories. But it is known that there are still millions of Ukrainians there.

Freedom has a price for every family. Liga.net tells the stories of three Ukrainian families, beneficiaries of the "Voices of Children" charity foundation, who agreed to share their experiences anonymously.

She was born and raised in eastern Ukraine. 2022, the occupation of her hometown. Evacuation to Russia. Her family believed the Russian propaganda and set out to build a new, supposedly better life, which they also wanted for their daughter. However, the girl had a different opinion. And a year before reaching adulthood, she began to plan her escape and return home to Ukraine.

"When I decided to go to Ukraine, I understood that I would need money first and foremost. So I started looking for work and saving. I didn't have a specific amount or calculations; the more, the better. That's how I decided to save 100,000 rubles (about 30,000 hryvnias). First, I got a job at a high-class restaurant. In the summer, during the holidays, I went to a seaside resort town. There were many tourists. Therefore, there was enough money. They left good tips."

The girl worked without days off, from eight in the morning to eleven at night. To everyone who asked her why she was doing this, she replied that she was saving up for an iPhone.

Besides that, she worked as a barista. The salary was lower there, but she still managed to save money. She talks about this experience with less enthusiasm; the job was difficult.

Despite everything, the girl is convinced that you shouldn't be afraid to try your hand at things. And she advises: if you don't have any special skills, start in the service industry: as a waiter, barista, or kitchen assistant. You can learn everything quickly.

It's important to have a plan. Then, no matter how difficult the work is, it's easier. Because you know what you're doing it for. When you receive that money, see it in your hands, you understand that the goal is getting closer.

She exchanged everything she earned into euros, as she had a prepared story for leaving, which she planned to tell at the checkpoint: she was going to Europe to study. And the money was needed for living there.

"This financial cushion still exists. Because, to my great surprise, when I arrived in Ukraine, people started helping: foundations, volunteers, various good people. I was met warmly. So, from my savings, I only spent money on a large suitcase that I took with me and on a freight forwarder. The latter cost about 300 euros. I planned to spend all the money I had saved on rent for the initial period, until I entered the university and moved into a dormitory. And the rest on tuition, if I don't get a scholarship."

When crossing the gray zone, it is possible to receive financial assistance from the UN in the amount of 10,800 hryvnias. It is assumed that this money can be used to live for some time while adapting to the new place. The girl did not know about this, she found out about it on the spot. She says that it takes a month or two to wait for this money.

The volunteer who helped the girl leave Russia and cross the gray zone is named Maria. Throughout the journey, she was with the girl, albeit remotely: she asked about her condition, advised on how to arrange logistics, and shared necessary contacts.

"I am very grateful to her. I still don't understand how a person just decided to help a complete stranger. At that time, I had to choose between three routes: through the gray zone and the checkpoint in Kolotilivka (Bylhorod district. – Liga.net), through Belarus, and through Europe. Kolotilivka was the most dangerous, because events were taking place in the Kursk region at that time. Europe is the most expensive and longest route. And Belarus… There are its own nuances."

In the end, the girl decided on Kolotylivka. Although her family was strongly against this plan and tried to dissuade her.

"My mother said that I would be killed there, that they shoot people in the back there, that I would stay there. After a while, when my mother realized that I wasn't joking and was really going to Ukraine, she found me a carrier she trusted and knew well. But she still hoped that nothing would work out and I would return 'to Mother Russia'. And my grandmother, a God-loving soul who would never say a bad word, once said: 'What are you going to do in Ukraine? All your suitors are already dead there.'"

The girl didn't listen to anyone and continued to pursue her goal. In addition to financial security, she was preparing for passing through checkpoints and being interrogated by the FSB.

"You need to think about technology. If your budget allows, it's better to buy another phone. And it's important to start 'living your life' on it a year before departure. Fill it with photos, messages, screenshots, watch movies, porn, send postcards with the St. George's ribbon on Viber. It's important that there's no trace of Ukrainian news or communication with anyone in the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Because they say the FSB reads even deleted messages. If you need to save phone numbers of someone from Ukraine, memorize them or write them on a piece of paper and sew it into the lining of your jacket."

During the questioning itself, it's important to remain calm. Be prepared for emotional pressure, intimidation, and manipulation. You need to improvise. Don't say you're going to Ukraine. For young people, the most common working answer is: "I'm going to Europe to study." But this story needs to be supported by details. You need to know the country, the university, the program, have relevant search history, and correspondence with someone you're going to see. Then you have a high chance of crossing the border without problems.

"I have acquaintances who remain in the occupied territories. I think about it a lot. Some stay because of their parents, their homes. A person has the right to decide what kind of life they want. I always said that yes, home, yes, parents. But sooner or later there will be no parents. You will have children, you will create a new family. And you will force this child to live in this crap with your own hands."

The girl currently lives in Kyiv, attends university, has a relationship, and creative hobbies. She communicates with her family via video calls, although these conversations often end in arguments. Her family flatly refuses her requests to meet in neutral territory, even in Georgia. They insist she come to them, to Russia.

"Home for me means Ukrainian identity, culture, service in Ukrainian, news in Ukrainian, a TV with Ukrainian programs, like "The Bachelor" or "Supermom". And also the unity of people around. And even guys who speak Surzhyk (a mixed Ukrainian-Russian language). That's also a manifestation of Ukrainian identity. It inspires me here."

In conclusion, the girl adds that the real price paid is far from monetary: "My price for leaving there, the price of freedom, is my family. Now in Kyiv, my only close people are my boyfriend who is serving and a volunteer. But I don't regret anything."

The mother is 46, the daughter is 18. They left the occupied territory on July 5th, 2024, the whole family: mother and three children. The father stayed behind; the Russians forbade him from leaving the city. On July 8th, the family reached Kyiv, where they have lived ever since. That day, the capital was met with plumes of smoke: a direct hit on the "Okhmatdyt" children's hospital. The woman glanced at the grey clouds and shrugged, thinking: "We left, so to speak. But people live here. So we can too."

Mom describes her life before the invasion briefly: "We lived so well that we didn't need to go to a resort." The family had a house with windows overlooking the sea. Next to it was a garden with flowers and trees. At home, on the shelves, was a carefully curated library. Both of them speak about it with particular pain: everything remained there. When they left, they took a minimum of belongings.

This family has three children: before the occupation began, the eldest studied in Lviv, the middle one went to school and was involved in a dance group, with which she often traveled to performances and competitions, including to Mariupol. The youngest attended kindergarten and was preparing to start school. The parents had a job they both loved – journalism.

In the first days of the full-scale invasion, on February 24 and 25, the editorial staff still went to work, even managing to produce a full news broadcast — which turned out to be the last. On February 25, they had to leave their workplaces in a hurry because it became known that enemy vehicles were already stationed at the nearest road junction near the city. It became clear that the family's life would change drastically.

During the occupation, the woman's journalistic work transformed to meet the demands of the time. For the first few days, she worked from home with her older daughter on a call center line: taking calls and compiling lists of people who needed emergency medication. Later, she joined the humanitarian headquarters at the Children's Creativity Center, where she volunteered and spent most of her time.

People from Volnovakha, Mariupol, and everyone who could escape from the eastern direction, started arriving at our humanitarian center. One day a young, well-groomed woman approached. She was in a tracksuit, silent. She said she had lost her child during the evacuation. She assured me that everything was alright and that she had been examined by doctors. She asked for feminine hygiene products, which were already in short supply in the city. I went to the warehouse and gathered as much of the essentials as I could. And since then I carry one tampon with me as a remembrance.

During this time, the father and his eldest daughter attended rallies in support of Ukraine, where the Ukrainian flag was unfurled in the city's main square. The middle daughter stayed home to play with her younger brother, trying to preserve his childhood.

From the beginning of the occupation, the family had been thinking about leaving the city and had started preparing. However, circumstances kept delaying the desired freedom. First, the father fell ill: he was actively delivering medicine around the city by bicycle, his health suddenly deteriorated, and he was taken away by ambulance. The treatment was long.

At that time, the family had already registered for evacuation from the city through volunteers. The woman was gathering documents and preparing everything necessary, having them notarized. Waiting for her father's health to improve, she was forced to miss this opportunity several times.

Several months passed. During that time, FSB officers visited the family, conducting searches and interrogations. As a result of this visit, the husband was taken away and held for a month. That period was extremely difficult for the family: "We understood that the chances were 50/50. And we might never see him again. For several days we went to places where we knew people were being held. On the fifth day, we found him on the lists. And we breathed a sigh of relief: he was alive. Then we were informed that we could pass on certain things: we stood in line to give him a blanket, sportswear, and the medicine he was taking. But my husband later said that he never received a single pill."

Soon, the husband was released, on the condition that he not leave the city. The family then realized that only the mother and children would be leaving. While her husband was away, the woman continued to collect money. She worked in a garden, tending the trees, cleaned houses, and helped an elderly woman who had suffered a stroke. Later, she got a job as a saleswoman in a women's clothing store.

The saved money was exchanged with "currency changers" who worked illegally: "Everything was based on trust. You had to take a risk. These "currency changers" also take risks. They are often found hanged or beaten in courtyards. The occupiers are not interested in officially arresting them; they have their own methods of "dealing" with them: they track them down, take everything they have, and encroach on their property."

Time passed, autumn arrived. The money for leaving was gathering slowly, and the evacuation route from Zaporizhzhia Oblast through Vasylivka was no longer operational. The woman, swallowing her pride, had to enroll her younger son and middle daughter in a Russian school. After the FSB visit, the family was already on the occupiers' "list," and many collaborators had been found among the neighbors. She had to take precautions.

The girl recalls that during her studies at the Russian school, she was repeatedly hinted that it was time to choose a university in Russia. She waved it off, saying she would enter Europe: "I was studying in the 11th grade in a Ukrainian school, preparing for the NMT (National Multi-subject Test), and devoted most of my time to it. And in the first half of the day, I went to the Russian school. I ate poorly, lost a lot of weight, was constantly stressed, and felt exhausted."

They decided to leave as soon as their middle daughter finished school. They had enough money: ten thousand hryvnias per person, six thousand for notarization and translation of documents, plus a small financial cushion for the initial period. However, this time it didn't work out either: their older daughter developed appendicitis and needed immediate surgery. And again, they had to wait for the end of her rehabilitation. This time – another month.

The family left the city, having arranged transport through Telegram. They left via Mariupol, passing damaged buildings. From there, through the Belgorod region to the Sumy region, to the checkpoint in Kolotylivka. Waiting, crossing the border, and finally the gray zone. The girl recalls: "We were standing in line. Time dragged on very slowly. But suddenly I noticed the inscription 'Ukraine' beyond the gray zone. And that's it. It became so warm. And only one thought in my head: sooner, sooner!"

The family now lives in the capital and is getting used to the city's rhythm. They say the strangest thing is seeing people in uniform and not feeling anxious. Because where they came from, a soldier on the street only meant danger. But in Kyiv, it's the opposite – it means safety.

How do they feel about their home now? For the girl, the city she left is now foreign. She says that as long as there are occupiers there, it's hard to call it home: "Home is where my loved ones are. Where I am happy." The mother looks at her daughter with a smile.

She herself will answer this question late in the evening, in a message: "There is one thing I don't tell the children: the possibility that we may never return home. I wouldn't want to pull the rug out from under them, leaving them without hope, but such a possibility exists. It's good that they have hobbies, things to do, and dreams, but everything, from the seascapes outside the windows to our library, family archives, paintings by artists, and lovely mementos from friends, will remain in the past. They may never see their father again."

This family found themselves under occupation from the very beginning of the full-scale invasion. They had no plans to leave. They had a large farm: 15 head of cattle, half a hundred birds, several cars and tractors. Leaving all this would have meant losing everything they had accumulated over several decades. But on June 6, 2023, the Russians blew up the Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Plant. All members of the large family had to abandon everything they had, which was under water, and go into the unknown.

She is 46 years old. She was born and has lived practically her entire life in southern Ukraine. She is in love with the village, the farm, the land. She has a husband and four children: three sons and a daughter. Her youngest son has a disability from birth, so she and her husband have been caring for him for over ten years. There is also a grandmother with a disability in the family. Her older sons have started their own families, and she has grandchildren.

"We lived under occupation for a year and four months. We couldn't just leave everything behind. We couldn't. It was scary. The Russians came to our place often. Once they came with a search, turned all the cabinets upside down, rummaged through all the drawers, even the refrigerator."

At that time, my middle daughter was 13. She was having an online lesson in a Ukrainian school. A man in a balaclava noticed this and snatched her phone. And he said: "Glory to Ukraine!". The children knew that the girl was in the occupied territory, so they were happy to hear these words. They thought it was a signal that the city was already free. They joyfully exclaimed: "Glory to the heroes!". To which the occupier reacted with rude swearing. The girl's phone was taken away and not returned.

The man in this family is an electrician by profession. In the village, he was known as a good craftsman. Soon, the occupiers found out about this. Since the Armed Forces of Ukraine were actively shelling enemy positions from Kherson, power lines often suffered.

"When they found out about it, they started coming every day, mostly in the middle of the night. All you could hear was shouting under the windows: 'Where is your husband?' He used to fix their wires and meters. And then one day they took him to 'move some things'. When he glanced at what they were loading, he saw it was ammunition."

This continued until, on the morning of July 6th, the eldest son, who works for the State Emergency Service in Kherson, wrote: "The Kakhovka Hydroelectric Power Plant has been blown up, evacuate immediately." "We didn't believe it. Before noon, the village was dry, nothing foreshadowed trouble. The water came in the evening. Literally in 20 minutes. My husband drove all our livestock to Holu Pryistany, drove the tractor and car there. By ten o'clock in the evening, the water was already up to our necks."

The family spent two days on the sandbank with 500 other people and countless livestock and pets. The woman regrets that they didn't manage to get all their livestock onto the sandbank: pigs, chickens, and other animals drowned. Two days later, news came from Kherson that boats were being prepared for evacuation. That's how her grandmother, her younger son with a disability, and her mother ended up in a boat: "This could have cost me my life. Because the following boats that went to our village to pick up people from the hill were shot at. People died. But we miraculously survived and got to Kherson."

The rest of the family left by land. A month after the Kakhovka dam was blown up, they managed to raise enough money to leave the village. The husband, a 13-year-old teenager, son, and daughter-in-law with a nine-month-old baby. The family's ticket to freedom was their livestock: the husband managed to exchange all the cows and calves for Russian rubles.

"We found a carrier. We agreed on everything. He said it would be 20,000 rubles per person, which is 10,000 hryvnias. He said we wouldn't have to pay anything for the baby. As a result, they were cheated. First, they wouldn't let us on the bus with the stroller, demanding money for it. We had to leave it behind. And then, when we got to Kolotylivka, they started demanding another 7,500 hryvnias for the baby. Supposedly because it's not allowed to transport a child without a child seat through Russia, and now they've received a fine."

The fraud didn't end there. The trip from Kolotylivka to Kyiv cost six thousand hryvnias. They promised that this amount would include the trip to Mykolaiv, as the bus was going there as well. It turned out on the spot that the bus stayed in the capital, so we had to transfer to another one. That's another six thousand hryvnias. So the total cost of the trip amounted to over 60 thousand hryvnias.

While waiting for the rest of her family to leave, the woman, having traveled to Kherson, which was already liberated at that time, moved to her eldest son in Mykolaiv. Thus, five adults and a small child ended up in a one-room apartment: her son and daughter-in-law with an infant, her mother, grandmother, and brother. After some time, the family reunited and began searching for new housing: "If it weren't for the volunteers, I don't know how we would have survived. They bought us a refrigerator, a washing machine, a laptop for studying, and dishes. Because we had absolutely nothing. We left everything behind. We all left with only one backpack, with a little bit of clothing packed in it, and that's all."

Currently, the family rents a house where all eleven of them live together. The sons each rent their own separate housing, but still spend most of their time with their parents so that the grandchildren are near their grandparents: "Our home is still there. Our soul is still there. We really want to go home. To our cows again. To everything familiar. Right now, I dream most of all about having my own house. To be able to grow things, raise animals. I want to live."