Warning: This story accommodates references to suicide
In a humid, crowded basement on the southern entrance of the Dariala Gorge, the mountainous no-man’s-land between Georgia and Russia, greater than 90 Ukrainian deportees from Russia are being held.
The deportees on the Georgian border checkpoint can solely step outdoors once they want the bathroom, they usually should go in pairs underneath the watchful eyes of Georgian border guards.
They’re right here as a result of they will’t cross the border straight from Russia to Ukraine as a result of warfare, and Georgia refuses to allow them to in as a result of many have legal backgrounds, so they’re stranded. Some have now been residing within the basement for practically two months.
Most of those males – together with a handful of girls – are former prisoners in Russia who’ve been deported after serving their sentences, however some have been expelled for different causes, reminiscent of issues with their immigration paperwork.
On Sunday evening, July 20, they mounted a protest.
“We’re not allowed outdoors!” one of many males shouted as they have been surrounded by safety personnel on the premises.
“We’re being tortured right here,” referred to as one other.
“It’s damp, there’s [disabled people] right here with out medical consideration, there’s nothing right here in any respect,” he added.
A video despatched by the deportees to Al Jazeera reveals one man very significantly harming himself throughout the Sunday evening protest.
“He’s been right here greater than a month,” 45-year-old Nikolai Lopata, one of many different detainees, advised Al Jazeera by cellphone.
“He was promised twice [that] he could be taken away. He purchased [travel] tickets twice, and each occasions nobody returned the cash,” Lopata stated, noting that the person, who suffers from anxiousness, has repeatedly been denied permission to journey by means of Georgia to Ukraine.
An ambulance arrived after greater than an hour, and paramedics bandaged his wounds, then left with out him. The person, who appeared within the video to be in his late 30s or early 40s, was not hospitalised and stays on the checkpoint, volunteers on the scene who’re in touch with Al Jazeera stated.
‘They gained’t allow us to in or out’
The detainees, who’ve arrived from Russia or territories occupied by Russia and have been launched from jail in latest months, at the moment are caught in limbo on this buffer zone, Lopata defined. In whole, roughly 800 deportees are regarded as caught in Russia or at Russian-Georgian border factors, consultants say.
“They [Georgian border officials] took our paperwork. They gained’t allow us to in or out of Georgia. They maintain telling us ‘tomorrow, tomorrow’. Some folks have been right here for greater than a month and a half in horrible, insufferable situations,” Lopata stated.
Initially from Dnipro in central Ukraine, Lopata stated he had been residing in Russia, the place he has a Russian spouse, two youngsters and a sister, since 2005. However in 2010, he was convicted of homicide. When he accomplished his sentence in 2024, he was despatched to a deportation centre for an additional yr. By then, the full-scale warfare between Russia and Ukraine was raging, so getting a one-way flight to Kyiv was unimaginable.
“Final summer time, they [the Russian authorities] promised to ship me to Georgia. Then, in winter, they promised to ship me to Ukraine by means of Belarus. Then, we have been taken to the border of Georgia, which supposedly accepts us, however Georgia is just not accepting,” Lopata stated.
As an alternative, when he reached the border on July 4, Lopata stated, he was photographed, fingerprinted and had his paperwork confiscated by Georgian border officers earlier than being taken to a cellar.
“We don’t do something. We sit within the basement,” Lopata continued, explaining that the lads sleep in shifts as a result of there are solely 40 beds.
The boys are supplied with little or no and lack dependable medical help, as a substitute having to depend on emergency care.
“An ambulance comes nearly day-after-day, generally twice a day, as a result of there are disabled folks, there are sick folks,” Lopata stated, including that there’s somebody with epilepsy, an individual with HIV, and one other with tuberculosis. “However they don’t supply something moreover speedy assist. Yesterday, for instance, they made an injection of painkiller, then stated, ‘That’s it, we will’t assist with the rest.’”
Activists and volunteers attempt to deliver necessities to the detainees every week.
Meals, home items and private hygiene merchandise are delivered by Volunteers Tbilisi, an organisation serving to Ukrainian refugees in Georgia.
“There isn’t a entry to recent air, there may be quite a lot of warmth and the cellars are closed,” organiser Maria Belkina advised Al Jazeera.
“These are usually not situations you may dwell in in any respect.”
Route by means of Moldova cancelled
Anna Skripka, a lawyer for the NGO, Safety of Prisoners of Ukraine, advised Al Jazeera that this drawback has been mounting for the previous two years of the warfare in Ukraine: “This humanitarian catastrophe began in 2023.”
Skripka stated some folks have turn out to be so determined they’ve tried to kill themselves. “They didn’t perceive what was occurring,” she stated.
“The situations there are horrible.”
In keeping with Skripka, there are 84 males and 7 girls at the moment being detained, and whereas the ladies are held in a separate room, their situations are additionally poor.
“The ladies complain to me that they’re not being taken to the bathroom,” Skripka stated.
“They requested us to purchase them a bucket with a lid to go to the bathroom.”
Beforehand, deportees at this border crossing have been transferred by bus to Tbilisi Airport to fly to Moldova after which on to Ukraine. That’s how Ukrainian activist Andriy Kolomiyets, thought of a political prisoner by the Russian human rights group Memorial, returned residence earlier this month after serving 10 years on drug and tried homicide costs.
Skripka defined that 43 detainees managed to depart between early June and July, touchdown in Moldova after which getting a bus to Ukraine. However 4 of them bought off the bus and stayed in Moldova, prompting the landlocked Japanese European nation to halt cooperation.
“They’re already again in Ukraine,” Skripka stated concerning the lacking 4, which Al Jazeera couldn’t affirm, “however Moldova stated, ‘Cease, we don’t wish to danger it.’”
In consequence, since mid-July, Moldova has refused passage for Ukrainian deportees from Russia.
Whereas Georgia was cooperative at first, it has additionally begun refusing to permit deportees by means of on the premise that many are ex-convicts who’ve served jail time in Russia, significantly limiting the choices for Ukrainians attempting to return.
“Most of those people have a critical legal previous and have been convicted quite a few occasions for grave or notably grave crimes,” the Georgian Ministry of Overseas Affairs stated in an announcement.
However Skripka stated that it’s unfair to smear all of them as hardened criminals. Some have been expelled from Russia for missing correct paperwork. Others have had their Russian citizenship revoked.
Their therapy, Skripka argues, goes past bureaucratic injustice; it raises critical authorized and ethical questions.
“They have been crushed, pushed from one other nation by the barrel of a machinegun … they’re victims of warfare crimes,” Skripka stated.
Additional complicating issues, most of the deportees lack the correct documentation.
Ukraine has been issuing “white passports” – emergency paperwork to permit residents to journey residence – however these solely final for 30 days.
Some Ukrainian politicians have spoken out.
Writing on X, previously often called Twitter, Ukraine’s Overseas Minister Andrii Sybiha accused Russia of “weaponizing the deportation of Ukrainian residents by means of Georgia”.
Russia is weaponizing the deportation of Ukrainian residents by means of Georgia. We suggest that Russia transport them on to the Ukrainian border as a substitute.
Since June, Russia has considerably elevated the variety of deported Ukrainian nationals, principally former convicts, to the…
— Andrii Sybiha 🇺🇦 (@andrii_sybiha) July 19, 2025
“We’re actively working with the Georgian and Moldovan sides to get the remainder of our folks transited to Ukraine,” he wrote.
“To keep away from additional issues, we publicly supply Russia to ship these classes of Ukrainian residents on to the Ukrainian border. We can be ready to take them on from there. There are related components of the border the place this may be carried out.”
A matter of nationwide safety
As soon as detainees have returned to Ukraine, they need to endure a radical safety examine.
“They have been in Russia for a very long time. Every little thing is feasible. They might have been recruited [by Russian intelligence]. It is a matter of nationwide safety for Ukraine,” Skripka defined.
There are additionally fears that the variety of deportees will soar within the coming months as there are a whole lot of Ukrainians who’re nonetheless ready in Russian deportation camps.
“In keeping with our calculations, there are about 800 folks. And if they’re all dropped at Georgia, will probably be a catastrophe,” Skripka warned.
In the meantime, in March, an edict issued by Russian President Vladimir Putin calls for that Ukrainians residing within the territories claimed by Moscow should both go away or settle for Russian citizenship by September 10. This might probably result in mass deportations.
Lopata, in the meantime, can’t wait to depart, though not essentially residence.
“My home in Ukraine has been bombed. My dad and mom have been killed, and I don’t know the place to go,” he stated.
“I simply actually wish to get out of right here any approach I can.”
