“It’s horrible to have had to go into exile twice in two different countries, I don’t wish that on anyone”, sigh Eugenia Dolgaya. This 29-year-old Belarusian journalist fled repression in her country by settling in Ukraine in November 2020, then was forced to take refuge in Poland in March 2022 to escape Russian bombs. “I lost all my belongings in the apartment I was living in kyiv. Since then, I no longer have a plan for the future,” adds the young woman. Go back to his native country? Impossible, under penalty of tasting once again the jails of the regime of Alexander Lukashenko, in power for twenty-eight years, and fraudulently re-elected in August 2020.
“I crossed the Polish-Ukrainian border when Russian rockets were fired from Belarus, says the mother. The Ukrainian border guard frowned upon seeing my Belarusian passport. I held my breath so he wouldn’t write anything on it. I was terrified that he could invalidate my only identity document. I then showed him proof of my status as a political exile and expressed my opposition to the war in Ukraine. He ended up putting his stamp. »
But since her arrival in Poland, Eugenia has had a series of disappointments. During a taxi ride, she comes across a Ukrainian driver who says he wants the Belarusians to end up killed just like the Russians. The journalist may explain to him that she is an opponent of power, the man does not want to hear anything. A few days later, the bank card that the journalist had obtained from a Polish bank got blocked. Another day, in a shop, a Ukrainian employee refuses to serve her, claiming that she does not understand the Belarusian language, which is very close to Ukrainian. “I confess that I do not understand this outpouring of hostility. Despite all the risks involved, Belarusians protested against the war in February. They are now in prison.” recalls the journalist.
“Ukrainians and Russians have the same enemy: Putin”
“This war generates a lot of emotions and there has been a noticeable wave of discrimination against Belarusians living in Poland. Three months after the start of the Russian aggression, people have become more rational and hostility towards Belarusians has decreased,” notes Alina Koushyk, a Belarusian journalist who has been living in Poland for a long time and works for Belsat, an independent Belarusian television channel, which broadcasts from Poland.
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