What Will Happen to Russian-Occupied Territories in Ukraine?
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You're listening to State of the World from NPR. We bring you the day's most vital international stories up close where they're happening. I'm Greg Dixon. The Trump administration is eager to broker a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine. One major sticking point is over Ukrainian territory currently occupied by Russia, such as Crimea and other areas. Moscow asserts four provinces are culturally more Russian than Ukrainian and that they should be allowed to take that territory.

NPR's Eleanor Beardsley went to southern Ukraine to find out what the people from those areas think. On a Saturday morning at the youth center in the town of Zaporizhia, several dozen volunteers are weaving strips of cloth into a giant net to make camouflage netting for the Ukrainian army. We're in the capital of the southeastern province of Zaporizhia. Russian forces control two-thirds of it.

But this city, the biggest in the province and a major industrial hub, remains firmly in Ukrainian hands. It was terrible. It was very scary because a lot of tanks and bombs and they come into my house.

That's 36-year-old Katerina Kishkan describing life under Russian occupation before she fled in the summer of 2023. I stayed so long, she says, because I really thought the Ukrainian army would save us. Mikhailivka is here, you see, it's here, here.

Then we came through Donetsk Oblast, Donetsk. She shows the route she and her 14-year-old daughter took to get out. They had to pass through Russian checkpoints where they underwent an intense search and interrogation process known as filtration. There are no Russian soldiers in the city of Zaporizhia, but air raid sirens wail many times a day to warn of incoming Russian drones and missiles.

We drive through mostly empty streets to meet another family who fled Russian occupation. Hello, Eleanor. Eleanor. Hello, Eleanor. Nice to meet you, Serhii. 23-year-olds Alena Serduk and Serhii Vasilko are engaged to be married. We take the elevator to the sixth-floor apartment where they live with her parents.

This house is my parents' mother and father. Sirdyuk says her family fled the town of Komysh-Zorya, about 50 miles southeast of here, a few months after Russian troops arrived. It was difficult, of course, because my family, my mother, father, we live in our village all our lives.

She says young women were scared to go out alone. It was lawless. They do what they want. Want to kill, kill. Want to confiscate car, confiscate car. Confiscate house also. In our streets, they killed two child and mother there and father there because there was alcohol. Drunk Russian soldiers killed an entire family one night. Serdchuk says everyone who could left.

A family from Russian-occupied Crimea has since moved into their house. A neighbor who stayed behind says the intruders are taking care of it. I ask them how they deal with this. We don't have other way.

We cannot do nothing. Nothing. They heard about what President Trump's special envoy to Ukraine and Russia, Steve Witkoff, said about their region, even though he seemed unable to name it in his interview with Tucker Carlson. I think the largest issue in that conflict are these so-called four regions, Donbass, Crimea, Tatarstan.

You know, the names. Lugansk, yeah. Lugansk, and there's two others. They're Russian-speaking. There have been referendums where the overwhelming majority of the people have indicated that they want to be under Russian rule. Alyona Serduk and her mother, Vita, say they were stunned.

They say people hid or voted out of fear during that Russian referendum held at gunpoint two and a half years ago. It was ruled illegal by the UN General Assembly. It's scary. We don't agree with his politics because it's our home. It's our home. Back home, they owned a bakery. Before war, we had a really good life. We had a house. We had a business.

We spoke Russian, says Vita Serdyuk. Nobody was persecuted for their language. As a justification for the war, the Kremlin argued that Russian speakers in Ukraine were persecuted. Serdyuk says now it's disgusting to speak the language of the occupier, and they've all switched to Ukrainian. Hello. Yes, Seryozhenka. Hi, granny. How are you? Hi, Seryozhenka.

Vasylko's grandparents stayed behind under Russian occupation. He calls them every day. The grandparents have their own garden and can grow vegetables, but medicine is scarce, and with most health care workers now gone, it's difficult if they need to see a doctor. Give me your card.

They talk about the weather or Vasilko's favorite sport, soccer, but never about the war or topics that could put his grandparents at risk.

See you soon, says Vasilko. This family is still hoping to return home and be reunited, but they admit it's looking less and less likely as the war drags on. Eleanor Beardsley, NPR News, Zaporizhia, Ukraine. That's the state of the world from NPR. Thanks for listening. This is Ira Glass, the host of This American Life. So much is changing so rapidly right now with President Trump in office.

It feels good to pause for a moment sometimes and look around at what's what. To try and do that, we've been finding these incredible stories about right now that are funny and have feeling and you get to see people everywhere making sense of this new America that we find ourselves in. This is American Life, wherever you get your podcasts.

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