Ukraine, Irina: “We will not forget that hug in Przemyśl”

Yulia was trapped in Bila Tserkva. Her husband Vitalij had a flight from Italy on February 24, but that flight never left. She didn’t know what to do, how to get to the border between Ukraine and Poland. But when a missile started firing on her city, she made up her mind. Il di lei is the dramatic story of a five-day journey. She alone with her two teenage children.

Julia arrived in Venice yesterday with a minibus. She entrusts her story to her sister-in-law Irina Chernenko, who waited for her with Vitalij for five days at the Polish border. “I have two children aged 12 and 17. I had to leave ». At the beginning of last week it was understood that the situation was getting worse. For this Julija had moved the boys to their grandparents in the countryside. And with Irina and her husband Vitalij was trying to persuade them to leave. “They are elderly and heart patients, they live on the ninth floor and when the sirens sounded they couldn’t get out.”

But on Thursday 24 February she got into the car with her children. “My parents were categorical: we stay. And so did my in-laws. I couldn’t afford to think like that. I had to think about my children, I had to save my children“. In the city there was already a shortage of goods, and it could no longer be taken. This is why the cash was all destined for gasoline. Bila Tserkva is located in the Kiev Oblast and is 620 km away from the Polish border of Przemysl. «She left alone», continues Irina, «Then she called a cousin who lived in a nearby town. They agreed to run away together and take over driving ”.

The first stretch of road is quite fluid in the spooky countryside. But the last hundred kilometers becomes a hell of cars, checkpoints. “We were tired, there were dramatic moments, there were serpentine lines. But the Ukrainians took care of us: the people who lived in the houses near the road brought hot tea and soups. There was confusion, there were gunshots ». To give her strength the voice of Irina and Vitalij just beyond the border of Przemsyl. Julija alternates hope and despair, tries to keep the boys calm, and meanwhile she thinks of her parents locked in the basement of the dacha outside the city. The hours pass, the cold and hunger make the situation more and more difficult. But finally, at half past one on Tuesday night she glimpses her sister-in-law’s red anorak in the dark. And behind her her husband Vitalij.

“We quickly decided last Thursday to get in the car. Vitalij had come to Italy because we wanted to evacuate our parents. And when the war broke out, he was here. We understood that there was not a moment to lose “, confirms Irina, 55, who has lived in Veneto for 15 and has built a life and a job as a social health worker,”we drove more than 1200 km with few stops. With only one idea in mind: to recover Jiulija and the boys and bring them to safety ».

Source: Vanity Fair

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