“If I didn’t have two small children I would have stayed to defend my country”. It’s hard to finish the sentence, to do it Anastasya has to swallow all the pain of her that got stuck in the middle of her throat and pushes to let her tears come out. «When you become a mother you have to think about your children first of all. Today I no longer cry, I just feel anger at what they are doing to my country, ”says Anastasya from the apartment in Milan where she is starting to shape her life again. She arrived here after reaching Poland fromUkraine and be boarded one of the coaches that Otb Foundation, the non-profit organization of the Diesel group, has sent to the border with Ukraine since the beginning of the conflict, to rescue women and children. To date, they have welcomed and accommodated 391 people, including about 250 minors.
Next to Anastasya there is Arianna Alessi, vice president of Otb Foundation, for over a month has been personally involved in welcoming women and children. Anastasya looks at her as you do with the people you meet when everything is lost and a family has been found in them. She tells her that the children have had lunch and are now playing in the living room. She then she takes the phone in her hand, she never leaves it. “My husband is a soldier and has remained in Ukraine. We talk to him often enough but he can’t tell me much about what he is doing or where he is because it is confidential information that must be kept secret for security. ”
It was he who told Anastasya when it was the best time to get away from Kiev and it is he who repeats to Anastasya today to stay in Italy. “Many Ukrainian people want to return to our country and are starting to do so because they think the war is over and the last day will be May 9”. A date that Russia has celebrated since the end of the Second World War as Victory Day and which has a strong symbolic value for the whole country and in particular for Putin. “But is not so. The violence will not abate and when the people return the massacres will not stop ”.
Bucha’s photos, videos of lifeless bodies on the ground with their hands tied, red nail polish. Anastasya follows what is happening in her country from the telephone and television. «I’m in Italy but it’s as if I never left Ukraine. The people who stayed there tell me about the atrocities committed by the Russians. When they kill people or rape girls they draw the Z of victory on their bodies and to hide the number of victims, they put the dead in the car and burn them “.
Anastasya tries to think about the present in Italy but that’s not what she wants. In Ukraine she worked as a graphic designer. “I can’t imagine myself here. I try for my children, to make them feel safe ». But the war has already left a mark on their eyes as well. Anastasya sees him every time she takes her eldest son to the park and he tells him while she plays with flowers that she is throwing bombs. “There was a thunderstorm the other night. He woke up screaming and wondering if the bombs had arrived here too ».
Other stories of Vanity Fair that may interest you:
-Ukraine, a month of war
-Ukraine, Iryna Guley: “Every awakening is a return to war”
-Mariupol, the children’s hospital destroyed, Zelensky: “Europeans, you can’t say you haven’t seen”
Source: Vanity Fair
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