‘The main rule is keep off the grass’: St Petersburg University volunteers talk about their work in the zone of the special military operation

Praskovia Khrustaleva 

I have been to Mariupol twice: at the end of September in 2022 and on New Year in 2023. Definitely, I was scared to go, because Russian troops were retreating from Kharkov. Initially, girls were not allowed to go there. As far as I know, we were the first female volunteer group, except for medical workers and psychologists. Later, the situation changed, because the girls who go there are strong. We, as volunteers, were prepared for the trip.

In Rostov, we had a psychological training and courses in tactical medicine and emergency situations. We were instructed what could happen and how, so we were fully prepared for our trip. There are many safety rules for volunteers. The main one is keep off the grass. Walking on the grass is strictly prohibited, because Mariupol was heavily mined after the fighting. You should also not enter destroyed buildings, as you could get caught in a collapse or trip over a tripwire. You should always communicate with local residents peacefully, calmly, even if they look at you suspiciously or say something unpleasant. You are a volunteer and have come to help people. You should not leave without notifying the senior volunteer. You can only move around together, and you always need to stay in touch. In September 2022, Russian SIM cards did not yet work and we were provided with the cards from a local operator. By the way, I was working in Mariupol just during the referendum, and I also received a message on my phone inviting me to take part in it. It turned out that I came to the Donetsk People’s Republic, but eventually was in the Russian Federation. 

Even if you are going to a relatively safe place, you must fill in all the necessary documents so that the Russian military knows about your movements. There are sabotage groups operating throughout the territory of the Donetsk People’s Republic, including Mariupol. The Ukrainian Armed Forces have an entire unit that is engaged in the targeted destruction of volunteers. Unfortunately, there were cases when volunteers died because of actions of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. 

I was to conduct events and extracurricular activities with children in arts, crafts, modelling, drawing, and origami. It was familiar to me. I graduated from art school; my dolls are exhibited at the Hermitage. Yet the challenge was I had to work with children of different ages. I worked with children from 3 to 16 years old, and I should provide personalised attention to each student. 

I arrived in Mariupol a few months after the fighting in the city ended. Yet people didn’t talk about it there, except that pensioners often came up and asked when everything would be restored. We didn’t know how to answer the question because the volunteers who worked with children had no idea about it at all. We received a warm welcome. During my trip, the city was quiet and calm. This makes you relax, because the atmosphere is inspiring in a way: south, sea, sun. Yet it’s very dangerous to feel this way as you never know what can happen. At the very beginning of my trip, there were several dangerous moments, but for obvious reasons I am not going to talk about them. 

In the place where we lived, many windows were broken, there were traces of shells everywhere, everything was covered with broken glass pieces. We expected difficult living conditions and were prepared for them. We thought that there would be no water or, at best, only cold water, but they even installed a boiler for us. 

In September 2022, almost all of Mariupol was in ruins. I must say that it was most difficult for Mariupol residents who lived in the private sector, since no money had yet been allocated for the restoration of this part of the city. No one was following the traffic rules, although the traffic lights had been restored. During the fighting, due to the ongoing attack, there was no place or time to bury people, and entire cemeteries were formed in the courtyards of houses. There were very, very many of them. Now almost all of them have vanished.

In winter, for the New Year, I took essentials, food, children’s things and toys. It was also my personal initiative. My partner and I travelled independently, without contacting any organisations, since we kept in touch with Mariupol volunteers. She knew that I was reliable and performed my duties very well, so she took me with her. We collected humanitarian aid in St Petersburg and Veliky Novgorod and transported it in two GAZelle vehicles to the centre where we worked in the autumn. During the trip, it was all peace and quiet. We arrived, transported things to the warehouse, and started to prepare for the New Year. Together with the centre, we spent the whole day preparing huge plates of salads. I had never seen so many meat dishes on the table before. I must say that everything is already good with products in Mariupol, some of them are even cheaper than here. Now, the town is actively recovering, and there was a big difference between what I saw in September and what I saw in winter. Everything is changing for the better. If we are allowed, we should go there again. 

How did I decide to become a volunteer? I thought, I had a strong psyche, health and life principles. Why not help people? Many of my friends are in the military or involved in humanitarian work. So, I also felt the need to get involved. If we talk about how volunteer trips to the combat zone changed me, I realised that nothing lasts forever and can collapse at one moment. You always need to be prepared for this. But it’s still very nice to see how people’s lives are improving with our help, the support of friends and various organisations. You see that you work to benefit others and people need it. We maintain warm relations with many people from Donetsk. We keep in touch, communicate, and sometimes send each other gifts. 

People in Mariupol are very good. From our first trip, we were driving to the border with a serviceman from the Donetsk People’s Republic, who in civilian life runs a small candy shop. On the way from Mariupol, he stopped by to check the warehouse and returned with two huge boxes of candies for me and my partner. I also have a Mariupol kitten at home, which was given to me by a local resident when I wanted to get a cat. 

I know that the University provides humanitarian assistance to the Donetsk People’s Republic and the Lugansk People’s Republic. The dean and staff at the Institute of History at St Petersburg University have collected a collection of books for Mariupol State University. Yet if students are involved in humanitarian aid, it is usually their private initiative. In collaboration with various public organisations, they participate in various fundraisers and donate funds. Many became interested in volunteer trips and also want to go to Mariupol. At the moment, volunteers are not involved in clearing the rubble; this is done by skilled workers. Yet people who will work with humanitarian aid are in great demand: we need to collect, deliver and distribute goods. Doctors and psychologists are always in demand. Yet they must be people with relevant education. Now, students in history at St Petersburg University are taking an initiative to provide humanitarian assistance to new regions. We are planning to begin cooperation with the University’s Volunteer Centre. 

Egor Mitin 

The first time I went to the zone of the special military operation was in May in 2023. At the Artillery Museum where I work (I combine work and study), the task was to replenish the trophy fund, and I was asked to help with this. I wrote to a friend, an artilleryman, who took part in the assault on Mariupol, and he advised me to contact volunteers. Eventually, I went with the volunteers. A couple of days later, the senior volunteer asked if I could be a volunteer. Without hesitation, I answered: ‘Yes, I can. What can I do? Give me instructions and I will do everything.’ From the beginning of the special military operation, I helped financially, but did not have an opportunity to go there myself.

I collected only 10,000 roubles to spend on a large box of painkillers for the Gorlovka hospital. A girl came to accept the cargo. She is a little over 30 years old, and she is Major, her unit, i.e. a medical battalion, covers 200 kilometres of the front. The lives of our wounded soldiers are literally on fragile women’s shoulders. You should have seen her joy with which she clung to the box we brought. It is impossible to describe, you have to see it. We decided to stop at the hospital, build a team of volunteers, and the next day move to Donetsk. There, I talked with the wounded and realised that they needed help. We are in St Petersburg, and everything is fine with us. But they have completely different living conditions. When they tell you about how they were wounded, how they were evacuated and miraculously survived, everything is clear to you. 

After that, I went to the artillerymen’s positions in the suburbs of Donetsk to bring the uniform sets and children’s letters. This is what I will remember for the rest of my life. I was met by 40- and 50-year-old men: mechanics, miners, carpenters. Some of them have been fighting since 2014. All military experience they had before was service in the Ukrainian army or, for the majority of them, in the Soviet army. When a stern man with a battle scar on his face reads a child’s letter from Russia, he turns away. It’s clear that he wants to cry. Many people then hang these letters on the wall in their unit; they never disappear. 

In August, I went for the second time. It was a more eventful trip. I was in Severodonetsk and Rubezhnoye, then again went to the position where I had to spend some nights. It was very scary, especially when at 4am we all jumped up, wide awake, having received the order to fight. There is an expression: ‘Artillery is the god of war’. When the whole battery is operating, you realise that this god is right here. The ground trembles, flashes of fire fly out of the barrel, and you hear the shell breaking the sound barrier. This is especially felt in the morning, when the air is still a little thin: first, you hear how the shell leaves the barrel, and, then, you hear this bang. A whistle begins to sound in the background: they are already shooting in the opposite direction, at our guys. It is adrenaline rush, which makes your attention and all your senses sharper. Here at home, I have never experienced anything like this. Then, I was taken away from the gun to a safer place, because, as I was told, there was a target position there. What is important is that at that time our fighters signed the projectile: "For Fedia Solomonov". 

Now, I mostly work as a volunteer with military personnel, with a hospital in Gorlovka and with the 5th separate motorised rifle Donetsk brigade named after the first head of the Donetsk People’s Republic Aleksandr Zakharchenko, also called "Oplot". Aleksandr Zakharchenko founded it in 2014. Now, it is undeservedly forgotten, but the guys were among the first to break into Mariupol and take it from cover to cover. 

I opened a special volunteer card to which funds are transferred. Many people give me different things, but I don’t have storage facilities and I therefore transport them to Moscow, where we sort everything, collect it, and leave in a humanitarian convoy of six to seven vehicles. In addition to the driver, each vehicle must have an accompanying volunteer who is responsible for the cargo and records the transfer of the cargo to the recipient. We drive to the border, and then we split into different directions: to Donetsk, Lugansk and Rubezhnoe. When we arrive, we unload into the warehouse what we cannot deliver immediately, and we begin to deliver the rest of the items to different locations. Dmitrii Shepakov, a war correspondent from the Federal News Service, is always with us. He also helps us prepare various materials. 

I am committed to my work. So, I travel once every two months, when I take a break, sometimes at my own expense. Many people believe that I am paid for volunteering and earn a lot of money on my trips. In fact, I do it even not to zero, but to a minus for myself. Volunteering is a full-time job that is very exhausting, both emotionally and physically. You are in the zone of the special military operation for only two weeks, but due to the constant state of stress, the body is exhausted. Sometimes, I returned home, and it was so hard for me that for a couple of days I just lay there and came to my senses. 

It is difficult to describe what volunteering has given me personally. You’re probably starting to see the harsh reality. Here, in St Petersburg, you can live with rose-coloured glasses, but when you come there, you see a completely different world. The 2000s literally froze in Donetsk. For example, to top up your phone, you need to buy a special card, erase the protective layer on it and send the code to a short number. Here, we don’t use them anymore. If you need to activate a SIM card, you first need to stand in a huge queue, call the operator and wait about half an hour until they do everything.

Living conditions there are also difficult. In Donetsk, electricity and water supply may be cut off periodically. Water is supplied during the day for a short period of time. Everyone has big problems with this, so in flats where there are no boilers, there are five-litre canisters. In the Donetsk People’s Republic, water is sold from huge tanks in grocery stores. Another typical situation for Donetsk is when you walk down the street and see a hanging, broken sign of a store, and everything inside the room has burned out. Pasted below is an A4 piece of paper on which it is written: ‘Dear customers, the store has moved to another address due to the fact that this one was bombed’. 

I was in shock when I saw how much the war had merged with everyday life. For example, when I arrived at the artillerymen’s positions, they ordered sushi, pizza and French fries there through delivery. In the same Gorlovka hospital, I saw how the wounded, who had recently been brought in, had already come to their senses, huddled in a circle and were discussing: ‘Well, now we’ll take the equipment, take a taxi and go to Bakhmut’. At that time, the town was still being stormed by the Wagner Group. 

It is this understanding that somewhere there is another life and we need to help make it different. This feeling of belonging to the historical moment is what motivates me to work as a volunteer. At least when it’s all over, I won’t be ashamed, I’ll be able to say that I did something. Yes, maybe little, but I made my contribution. There is a different world, a different way of thinking. Donetsk people are people with whom you feel strongly. They are hard workers, very open and straightforward. If you come to them without whims, they will talk to you sincerely. 

On my next trip, I am planning to try myself as a war correspondent. First, I’ll transport the humanitarian cargo, and then Dmitrii and I will go to Bakhmut, Soledar, Kleshcheevka, Rabotino and, possibly, to Makeevka in the Lugansk People’s Republic. If we’re lucky (although no one would say so), we’ll go to Maryinka, a suburb of Donetsk. First of all, we are planning to film the work of military doctors and show the entire chain from being wounded on the first line, evacuation and placement in the ambulance point to being transported to the hospital. This is important to explain to people because we often hear about doctors, but we know little about the conditions in which they work. Few people know that the Armed Forces of Ukraine identifies three primary targets: volunteers, reporters, and doctors. I did not know this. When Dmitrii was preparing a material about the work of military doctors and filming at the ambulance point, I briefly moved away from him. At this particular time, a shooting battle began about a kilometre away from us. When I returned, he sternly asked where I had been: literally, a sabotage reconnaissance group had just been liquidated very close to us, and he was afraid for me.

Ambulance point is an initial point where the wounded are brought to stabilise their condition to be transported to a medical unit or a hospital.

It’s one thing when you see the shelling of Donetsk on the news on TV or in a telegram channel. It is different when you find yourself there, see and hear everything yourself. At the same time, I still don’t understand one thing: there are no military facilities there, except hospitals, so why are shells flying there? It is not at all clear why this is being done. The indoor market in the centre of Donetsk is regularly shelled, the Petrovskyi District has been almost completely demolished, and people still live there. A complete nightmare is happening in Yasinovataya, and they often fly to Gorlovka. The last time I was there, there was an explosion somewhere nearby at night. It was close, very loud, and the shock wave opened the door in the room where I was sleeping. It’s scary when you hear this for the first time. Then, it becomes a routine. But it’s even scarier when you understand that for people this is normal, they don’t react to it in any way.