Twice a day, a packed train from St. Petersburg pulls in to Finland — one of the last remaining corridors out of Russia.
Thousands of Russians who have a way out of the country have fled for Finland since its invasion of Ukraine, arriving at Central Station in Helsinki, where a Ukrainian flag now flies.
One woman, wearing the colours of Ukraine, told CTV National News that she is at the train station to pick up a friend from Moscow.
“I think that he is against the xjmtzywwar,” she said, when asked why her friend is leaving Russia.
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Unlike Ukrainian refugees, they are not escaping bombs at home, but some are still running for their lives, fearing crackdown against those who oppose Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Rights group OVD-info, which tracks detentions in Russia, has said police detained more than 866 anti-war protestors across 37 cities on Sunday alone.
Ukrainian citizen Svitlana lived in Russia for a decade. She took the train to Helsinki days ago, and is now in Berlin, but she left friends behind.
“All the country is a huge gulag, a huge prison,” she told CTV National News. “My heart is bleeding about my Ukrainian friends, and my heart is bleeding too about my Russian friends.”
Others are also fleeing sanctions that have transformed their lives. The sanctions are intended to deliver economic punishment to Russia for its attack on Ukraine.
Many companies and stores from the West, which became staples of middle-class life in Russia over the decades have now shut down.
“It is sad many world brands are suspending their work here,” a woman named Maria in a Russian shopping mall told Reuters. “So many people are now out of jobs.”
Among the Russians making their way out of the country, many fear that they represent a war they oppose.
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Thousands of Russians who have a way out of the country have fled for Finland since its invasion of Ukraine, arriving at Central Station in Helsinki. (CTV National News)
