Mikita Siarhun isn’t Russian. But since the invasion of Ukraine started, the 13-year-old Russian speaker has been verbally abused, threatened, and attacked. Having arrived from Belarus three years ago, his mother Katerina Samonchik says the bullying is centered around the invasion of Ukraine. Belarus’ authoritarian leader Alexander Lukashenko is an ally of Russia’s president Vladmir Putin and has defended the Russian invasion.
Since the outbreak of war in Ukraine on 24th February, there have been a number of attacks on Russian speakers living in the UK. Many of them take place in London, where an estimated 300,000 Russian speakers live.
Mikita and Katerina settled in Erith, on the south bank of the Thames, when Mikita began to attend a nearby school. Struggling with English, he took refuge in the fact he could at least make some Russian friends. Then the war started.
“After the war, they began to ask my son and his Russian friend ‘do you love Putin? Go to Russia’,” Katerina says.
Mikita was struck with an object at school, by the same group of bullies, leaving him bruised and cut. Despite Katerina’s best effort to keep her son safe by arranging for him to go to school in a taxi, things continued to escalate.
“A week later, a boy approached my son and his Russian friend in the schoolyard and said ‘get ready, tomorrow my friend will come to kill you with a knife’,” says Katerina. Although the school responded by excluding the person responsible, Mikita still feels scared to go to classes.
Different perspectives on the Ukraine invasion
Across the city is the Russian Orthodox Cathedral. The small building, tucked away in a Knightsbridge side-road, has been targeted by malicious callers since the war began. Among its congregation is Russian Ellen Emmery, who has come to pray.
Since the war started, she has felt uncomfortable telling people where she comes from. Although Emmery says most people have not been unpleasant, she says she considered leaving the country even though she has lived here almost half her life. Her parents back in Russia advised her to tell people that she was from Latvia.
“It is silly to condemn everyone who is Russian”
Elke
“I think if I said I am Russian at the start of the war, they would kill me on the street,” she says.
“I just felt disgusted that I haven’t done anything [to aid the war effort], and I have to go through this. The news is showing you must support Ukraine, [it’s like] two boxers are fighting, and if you pick one and not the other, you are you going to beat me up.”
Even though she doesn’t support the war, she says she supports Putin as he has brought many benefits to the country in the past.
Ellen is not the only one in the church to have strong feelings. The elderly Russian-speaking custodian refuses to talk directly about the issue. Instead, she jabs at a hastily-sketched map of Eastern Europe as a way to explain the long history of the conflict between the two countries.
These views reflect the complexity of everyday Russian speakers’ responses to the war. Some are outright opposed to it and have faced persecution in Russia. For those that aren’t the reasons are often grounded in historical context. It’s a context that the Kremlin propaganda machine has been happy to exploit.
“I think if I said I am Russian at the start of the war, they would kill me on the street,”
Ellen
Distinction between the president and the people
Outside the Russian Embassy, a lone woman continues to protest against the war. German Elke Rollman has been joined in her campaign by Russians several times. She understands the need to distinguish between the president and the country.
“It is silly to condemn everyone who is Russian,” she says. In her hand, there is a sign saying, “honk if you hate Putin.”
While nobody has been physically attacked, many in the embassy have been verbally abused by the group camped outside.
“One man just got a visa, he said ‘I want to visit my mother in Russia’, he lives here, he was very nice,” Rollmann says. “It is very difficult if when they come out of here you assume they are for the war.”
The belief that Russians who are not actively against the war must be for it, is represented by the row of iron barriers that run across the opposing sides of the road.
Across the city, people are being targeted because they are Russian speakers. Those affected do not want to feel like they are responsible for the war just because of where they come from. Back in Erith, Katerina has tried to remind her son that it is not his fault. “I try my best to explain to him that we are not to blame for anything and that he should be proud that he is Belarussian.”