Irina Crinina left Russia in September 2023, leaving behind her apartment in Krasnoysk, her car and her job as an accountant. He packed his bags, took his two daughters, at the age of 7 and 10, and his partner for Ukranto, Yavageni left for Kovatkov.
Kovatkov, who is not the biological father of his children, was caught fighting bees to fight against the Ukrainian army for Russia when he was caught.
He booked a flight to Türkiye, flew from there to Moldova, and then traveled to Kiev. He received logistic support from a helpline run by Ukraine’s Defense Intelligence Service, The Hur. The name was “I Want to Live” (“Khuchu Zit”), the helpline was originally prescribed to surrender to Russian soldiers. Crinina used service to find her partner, and then traveled to Ukraine to find her – was the first to try to find a thing in it.
In an interview with DW, he said that Ukraine is very rarely known by 2022, but returned to creature’s anecdote in 2014. But it was only in 2023, when his partner was sent to fight in the Donnetsk region and what- after the latter prisoner.
“When I realized what the real was happening, I no longer wanted to live in Russia,” Krinina said. “I was completely disappointed with the Russian state … I don’t want my family and children to be held responsible for being scary. So I went to Ukraine to help.”
On arrival, Crinina has to face disappointment. Is his partner not happy about his journey. In the online video published by a Ukrainian youtuber, the man quietly asks: “Ira, why?” He is stressful and confused.
While Crynina currently wants to live in Ukraine, Kovatkov is waiting for a prisoner exchange to return to Russia. Today, they are no longer a couple. “I did not recognize Yevgeni,” he said. “Hey changed a lot, it is cold, withdrawn and worried. War and imprisonment change people a lot.”
Our way out the contact of the Russian of war out of the war of war
In Ukraine, Crinina established the Project Hour Way out, which helps contact the relationship of Russian prisoners of war with her loved ones. The initiative was included by the famous Russian journalist Victoria Ivaleva, who is campaigning for Ukraine Sion 2014 and went to Kiev in March 2022.
Krynina visits prisoners in camps, records interaction with them, saves parcels and helps them to phone calls. Thus video conversations serve as evidence for a relative of prisoners that they are in captivity, saying, saying that it is difficult to identify as a prisoner of war in Russia.
Several captured soldiers are often missing, dead or labeled as a deity. Others are still listed as active soldiers, although they cannot be contacted. Kreenina said that even the Russian Consolidation Office is now secretly recommended that relatives of war prisoners contact the project.
It has more than 100,000 customers in the YouTube channel and has hundreds of interviews with prisoners who talk about the lives of their formors, why they signed up with the Russian army and how they were caught.
Therefore, Russian has a conversation facility with a relative who returned to the fight in Ukraine after Stogue returned to Russia in a prisoner exchange. Crinina advised the affected people to contact journalists and lawyers. “If a prisoner of war does not fight for his rights, then does not demand anything, the state simply sends him back to the war,” he explained.
Despite the risk of sending former prisoners to fight on Ukrainian earth once again, Crinina wants to help the Russian prisoners of the war return home. “Every dandruff returned, so it means a Ukrainian returned,” he said. “The exchange must be released.”
‘Everyone is associated with this war’
When Crinina arrived for the first time, Petro Yatsenko of Ukrainian Army coordination headquarters to treat war prisoners told the news platform detector media, which “played a role in helping Ukraine in the information war against Russia.”
Crinina said that she “aims to show the Russians what the real is going on.” To do this, she travels to sites of Russian attacks and record video. She believes that her approach works: “People who are close to someone in front, I say 99%, all of this want to stop. Everyone is bound by this war, and no one understands why it is still going on.”
Crynina is convinced that the video is one of those re -resulting, why her project was placed on blacklist in July 2025 on Russia’s “foreign agents”. When asked by DW if she feels guilty of crimes that have come in Russian, she SID: “Shooting.
How is she doing in Ukraine?
Many Russian have chosen Crinina’s move in Ukraine, but have mixed feelings about Ukrainian. In Vasant 2025, a post went viral on Facebook by a customer of an Kiev Fitness Club. She met Crinina while exercising and was angry that a Russian citizen was allowed to move independently to Ukraine. Some comments urged the Fitness Club to refuse Cyanina’s access, while others revealed what she is legally in the country.
Cranina said that first of all, she will be condemned to speak Russian, but says it has not happened yet. Thesis Days, she rents the apartment in Kiev and her daughters go to a Ukrainian school. She is supported by her ex -husband and works as an accountant on the side. His work for our way is voluntary.
She told DW that she expects to return to a “free Russia” one day, but said that the relationship between Russia and Ukrainian will never happen again.
“Russia has brought a lot of pain and difficulty for the Ukrainian people. I think Russians will feel guilty, but they will not be able to amend. I don’t know if Ukrainians will be able to forgive Russians.
This article was original in Ukranian.
