In order to free her partner from Ukrainian captivity, the Russian Irina Krynina travels to Kiev. She is allowed to enter the country and meet her boyfriend: Ukraine seems to be interested in the visit of the accountant from Siberia. The country’s secret service even covers travel and living expenses.
Numerous relatives of Russian soldiers in Ukraine have been searching for their husbands for months. They wander from authority to authority. Wives and mothers face complete indifference from the Defense Department. Russian social media is also of no help to Russian women who are looking for their sons or husbands who have disappeared in the war zone in Ukraine: The network VKontakte, a kind of Russian Facebook, deletes posts in which relatives call for the return of soldiers. Posts with hashtags like “We’re getting the boys back” or “Time for the mobilized to return home” are blocked.
According to a Russian media report, the Russian Irina Krynina from Siberia managed not only to find her prisoner of war partner, but also to meet him in Kiev. The accountant then decided to stay in Ukraine.
Yevgeny Kovtkov, now 34, was mobilized in his hometown of Krasnoyarsk in September 2022 and sent to Ukraine a short time later. Kovtkov was captured in the summer during fighting for the village of Klishchiyivka near Bakhmut. As Krynina tells the independent Russian media “Ljudi Baykala”, she recognized her partner on a video from the Ukrainian army on Telegram, in which several captured Russians answered a Ukrainian soldier’s questions. Although this practice is controversial under the Geneva Conventions, the Ukrainian side often publishes such videos so that relatives of prisoners know that they are still alive.
Flight tickets and three-room apartment in Kyiv
To find her partner, Irina initially relied on the classic exchange of prisoners of war. At the beginning of September, she and ten other relatives of Russian prisoners in Ukraine recorded a video that they published on YouTube. In it they call for their relatives to be exchanged and complain that the Russian Defense Ministry is doing nothing: “Nobody is helping us, they are just sending stupid answers.” The call, which has since been deleted, achieved nothing – even after the video message was published, there was no reaction from the authorities.
Krynina then came across the “I Want to Live” initiative, a contact point for Russian deserters and relatives of prisoners of war, set up by Ukraine’s military intelligence service after the Russian attack. According to Ukrainian media reports, they have started a project called “We bring men back to their wives”. The aim of the program is to give Russian women the opportunity to travel to Ukraine and bring their husbands or sons back to Russia from captivity. Ukrainian media report that Irina Krynina was the first to take advantage of this offer. However, there is no evidence of such a program on the website of the initiative founded by the intelligence service.
Since she felt left alone with her problem in Russia, she finally traveled to Kiev with her two daughters from a previous relationship. First by plane to Turkey, then on to Moldova, from there by bus to Ukraine, Krynina is quoted in the “Ljudi Baikala” report: “The night before the flight I almost died of fear.” The trip was allegedly paid for by “I want to live,” the woman claims in one Youtube video. The cost of her accommodation – a three-room apartment in Kiev – was also covered by the Ukrainian side, it says in the video.
“What the fuck for?”
Yevgeny and Irina’s first meeting was filmed and posted on the YouTube channel of blogger Volodymyr Zolkin, who conducts interviews with Russian prisoners of war for “I Want to Live.” published. It can be seen that the Russian soldier is visibly uncomfortable being presented in this way, especially since he was apparently not prepared to meet his partner. “What the fuck for?” he repeats several times. In a conversation with Zolkin after the meeting, he claims that he only met Irina shortly before he was drafted. Does he love her? “Yes, probably,” the prisoner answers the blogger uncertainly and after a long pause. However, according to Krynina, the two have been a couple for six months. “I don’t know why he said in the interview that we were only together for two months,” she says in the video, frowning.
Before the second meeting, the prisoner of war must decide whether he wants to return to Russia or stay with Krynina in Ukraine. According to the woman, Ukraine gave him this choice. For Krynina herself, one thing is clear: she wants to stay in Ukraine for the time being and work as a blogger to educate her fellow citizens about the Russian war of aggression. On her YouTube channel “About the truth about the war in Ukraine” she says in a video: “What is happening now in Ukraine is a terrible crime and suicide for Russia.” She wanted the war to end and “all prisoners of war to return home.” The video has been viewed almost 500,000 times.
Ambassador and role model
While the actual goal of her journey, to free her partner from captivity, is increasingly pushed into the background in Ukrainian and Russian media reports, Krynina is increasingly portrayed as a heroic opponent of the war. Krynina, who worked as an accountant in Russia, has already received a job offer from the “I want to live” initiative. If she passes aptitude tests, she will work with the project, a spokesman for the initiative said on Telegram. Accordingly, she will then “do everything to end this war.” On social media, she is said to be a kind of ambassador for Russian women who do not want to let their men go to the front. She should also receive a salary for this.
Even though the Ukrainian state finances the livelihood of a Russian woman in the middle of the war against Russia, Krynina’s commitment seems to be well received in Ukraine. Your videos are viewed hundreds of thousands of times. In the comments she is celebrated as a role model for Russian women – both Ukrainians and Russians.