You're reading: Vostok SOS volunteers help resettle families from the war zone

Sofia Annenkova knows how to distinguish between different types of shelling by noise. There is nothing unusual about that in Krasny Luch, a city in Luhansk ​Oblast ​that has been living under separatist control since August. Except, perhaps, her age. She is just three years old.

Sofia’s m​other ​Maryna Annenkova, 29, decided to flee her home once she realized it. But the family’s journey turned out to be a difficult one.

They fled to Kharkiv in mid-August and lived together with their relatives for a while before realizing they will need a different shelter. The local authorities promised them a place in Izyum, a city in Kharkiv Oblast. But when they arrived to Izuym, they found that their new home was supposed to be the grounds of an abandoned hospital.

“There were no windows there and almost no light. And the smell in our basement in Krasniy Luch where we used to hide was better,” Annenkova explains.

The family traveled back to Kharkiv the next day and managed to settle in one of the city’s hotels with the help of local volunteers. Annenkova says they were lucky because they arrived right before some big shot from Kyiv was due to visit the city to monitor the situation with refugees. The volunteers shared her story, and this is how Annenkova and her daughter finally ended up in Kyiv.

That’s how the family joined the list of 460,365 internally displaced people registered in Ukraine as of mid-November, according to the United Nations count.

Annenkova had no idea how to make it through autumn without a job and a place to live. Fortunately, they got help from Vostok SOS (East SOS), a volunteer support center that deals internally displaced people and those still living in the war zone. The initiative began its work in April.

Human rights activist and center coordinator Oleksandra Dvoretska is amazed how many people have been ready to help since conflict in eastern Ukraine started in April.



Oleksandra Dvoretska, human rights activist and center coordinator (С) together with her colleague, Kostyantyn Reutskiy (L) talk about their center in Kyiv. Photo by Volodymyr Petrov.

The Vostok SOS office, located close to the EuroMaidan Revolution center, Maidan Nezalezhnosti, became a second home for many refugees. Its four rooms are piled high with boxes of clothes and supplies, and the walls are covered with maps and to-do lists.

The initiative was started by activists from Postup, a Luhansk-based human right organization forced to move to Kyiv after rebels took Luhansk.

“Most of people on our team know personally what it means to be a refugee,” explains Dvoretska, who fled her native Crimea after the Russian annexation.

The team has now grown to 35 volunteers mainly from the eastern Ukraine, who work around the clock. They are focused on helping refugees from occupied Donbas and Crimea. The team has helped to move 11,000 people.

Dvoretska says that’s way more than the government, which “often drags behind the situation.”

“The authorities often failed to provide help as needed,” she explains, adding that the Kyiv city authorities have only managed to accommodate 700 people during the same time.

Meantime, Ukraine’s Social Policy Minister Luidmyla Denysova said on Nov. 7 that at least 452,952 people have been moved by the government, according to official data.  

Vostok SOS also provides assistance for registering in a new location, which is required to receive government payments, including pensions, and provides legal aid.

Annenkova says she’s grateful for the help. 

“They helped find warm clothes for me and my daughter Sofia, and later for my husband,” she explains. “They also provided us with a care package, which includes a cooking pot, a pan, a kettle, warm blankets and household cleaning supplies. It’s basically everything we urgently needed,” she recalls.

Dvoretska and her team also keep track of hostages. She says it is one of the most difficult parts of her job. Their hotline receives hundreds of calls per day.  “People can call at 3 a.m., when they are in trouble or if they find out relatives have been captured,” she says.



The Vostok SOS volunteers discuss their agenda. Photo by Volodymyr Petrov.

She recalls they received up to 500 phone calls per day in the summer when the anti-terrorist operation was at its peak. Now Vostok SOS has information about some 800 hostages and stays in touch with their relatives. They also have people on the ground to negotiate hostages releases where possible.

“Most of those hostages admit they were tortured,” Dvoretska says, adding that all those cases need further investigation. Her colleague, Kostyantyn Reutskiy, a human rights activist from Luhansk, says that one of their activists died weeks after he was captured by the militants of so-called Luhansk People’s Republic.

The team members say they became not only a service for legal and humanitarian aid, but a “psychological center.” Besides humanitarian and legal aid, the center reports on events in the country’s east though their website. The platform aims to gather information about the situation in rebel-held Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts and keeps readers up to date about the government’s moves.

“It’s important to tell people what’s going on, as even many of those who are living in Luhansk have no idea what is happening in their city,” Reutskiy explains.

The coordinators admit that there are people they can’t help. “It’s our responsibility to help those who lost everything– their hometowns, belongings; some of them even their families. I just hope my native Luhansk will come back under control of Ukraine and things improve,” he adds.

Annenkova’s family now lives in Protsiv, a village some 50 kilometers outside Kyiv. They used to live in a private house in their native city, but now all they can afford is a trailer. But there is no regret.

“My daughter is happy here. She goes to a local kindergarten for free, my husband and I can work here,” Annenkova explains. She doesn’t think her family will ever make it back to Donbas. 

Kyiv Post staff writer Olena Goncharova can be reached at [email protected]