Russian expats feel ostracized since start of Ukraine war

MOSCOW (AA) – Russians living in Europe say their lives changed after February 24, 2022, when Russia launched a “special operation” in Ukraine.

Writer and historian Viktoria Prozorova-Thomas, who has been living in France for nearly a quarter-century, said that the first thing that changed was the news.

“From every TV and radio we hear a flood of propaganda slandering Russian authorities and the country itself. Those who try to say something contrary to the general line are unceremoniously hushed up,” she said.

Saleswomen working in Russian shops where the diaspora buys traditional food and other items complained of growing levels of incivility, she added.

“The other day, a man was insistently asking the seller whether she’s Russian or Ukrainian. She told him that she’s a French citizen, just like him.

“In elementary school, a teacher showed children a cartoon of the ‘evil Putin on a tank,’ and at recess classmates shouted ‘You dirty Russian!’ (and) attacked a boy from a French-Russian family.

“A group of drunken elderly men in Brest who left a restaurant attacked a woman in a car park who was talking to children in Russian near her car.

“A bank confiscated the salary and all the funds of a doctor who has been living and teaching in Alsace for 14 years, under the pretext that she’s Russian,” Prozorova-Thomas said, recounting the grievances of her friends and relatives.

Prozorova-Thomas also said Russian churches and a Russian cultural center were attacked in Paris. One of the churches was burned to the ground, and on the walls of another church, alleged Ukrainian refugees wrote “Russian pigs must die,” she added.

“A principle of collective responsibility is in action,” she said. “For them there’s no difference between those who left for France like me in the dashing 1990s because they were trying to survive, those who left before me due to disagreements with the Soviet system, or later with the course taken by Vladimir Putin, and even those who left for great love, interesting work, and coffee with croissants – all of us are just ‘Russians’ for them.

“Whether we want to be responsible for Russia’s actions or not, we may be ‘appointed’ responsible by anyone,” she said.

Employment problems

Adam Bibulatov, who has lived in France for more than two decades, said that he has not been able to find a job since the start of the “operation” in Ukraine.

He said he works in construction but since the war started he has increasingly been turned down by employers, who tell him the company “doesn’t need Russian workers.”

“In France indefinite employment contracts are rare, mostly I worked under fixed-term contracts. Now I haven’t been able to find a job for months, I live on social support. My quality of life has dropped,” he said.

Pyotr, 39, worked in a research center in Vienna. After the war started, his contract was terminated. In a private conversation, his colleagues told him “any Russian could be a spy.”

The Russian Foreign Ministry has decried how the US and Europe, the self-proclaimed guardians of human rights, ignore the discrimination toward Russians due to their nationality.

According to the ministry, it is getting complaints of rising hate crimes against Russians from diplomatic missions abroad.

The ministry also said attacks on Russian diplomatic missions are taking place all over the world.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​