e were escaping from Kyiv and we witnessed how everything on our way was turning into a battlefield.” – Olena Dmytrenko
Slava from Dnipro is not panicking and is doing his part to help with volunteer work, while expat Artem is organizing humanitarian aid from Lithuania.
Editor’s Note: This is an abbreviated version of three interviews published by Bulgarian business weekly Capital and translated and shared with Diplomatic Courier. Capital journalist Marina Staneva spoke with Olena, Slava, and Artem about their experiences over the past several weeks. Their stories follow. The full article in Bulgarian can be found here.
“The evening before the Russian invasion I was still working. I went to bed around 3 am hoping I would wake up by the phone alarm in the morning. Instead, I woke up two hours later because my friend called to say she heard explosions,” Olena Dmytrenko explained over the phone. Olena works for Deloitte in the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv. As soon as the war started, she decided to go with friends by car to the countryside.
The traffic was extremely congested - they traveled for 17 hours, and it took them four hours just to leave Kyiv. Outside the city, they witnessed from the car how every place that they passed by had turned into battlefields.
Now Olena is in a village near the Ukrainian city Chernivtsi which is close to the border with Romania. She is in a house with 11 more people. She thinks that this is one of the safest places in Ukraine now because of the proximity to a NATO member. “If the violence reaches me, I may cross the border to Romania but for now I am not making any plans. Just living day by day.”
“At the moment there is not a truly safe place in Ukraine”
When the Russian attack started Slava, an IT specialist from the city of Dnipro, helped his girlfriend to move to his apartment for safety reasons. Now he says by phone that he spends his days busy with volunteer work. “We supply essential stuff for the hospitals. Everybody is helping with whatever he can - with military expertise, with medical care, or just by not panicking”.
If the fighting comes near him Slava won’t run. “At the moment there is not a truly safe place in Ukraine. At home at least you know who is who, and you could count on your neighbors. Traveling in times of war is more dangerous than staying”.
He is calling everyone in Europe and the USA “to organize demonstrations so that your governments see you. We are getting information about your support and we really appreciate all this”.
“It is cynical to explain that this is not war but some kind of an operation”
The Russian invasion found Ukrainian Artem Ponomarevskyi in the Lithuanian city of Kaunas where he has lived since 2020. He immediately started to organize the delivery of humanitarian aid to his home country. “The supermarkets are empty, and Ukrainians need food, clothes, medication. For the government - we are in a desperate need of weapons, ammunition, fuel”, he says on the phone.
Artem is furious at the Kremlin: “Very few people could imagine such cynicism - to tell the international community that this is not a war against Ukraine but some kind of an operation.”
He says that now no one in Ukraine is staying indifferent - people even with bare hands are going on the streets to stop the tanks. For his efforts Artem just says: “I am trying to help my nation with everything I can”.
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No “Truly Safe Place in Ukraine” – Ukrainians Tell Their Stories
Photo by Karollyne Hubert via Unsplash.
March 11, 2022
Marina Staneva of Bulgarian business weekly Capital interviewed three Ukrainians - Olena, Slava, and Artem - to hear about their experiences as they come to grips with Russia's invasion of Ukraine and what they can do in response.
W
e were escaping from Kyiv and we witnessed how everything on our way was turning into a battlefield.” – Olena Dmytrenko
Slava from Dnipro is not panicking and is doing his part to help with volunteer work, while expat Artem is organizing humanitarian aid from Lithuania.
Editor’s Note: This is an abbreviated version of three interviews published by Bulgarian business weekly Capital and translated and shared with Diplomatic Courier. Capital journalist Marina Staneva spoke with Olena, Slava, and Artem about their experiences over the past several weeks. Their stories follow. The full article in Bulgarian can be found here.
“The evening before the Russian invasion I was still working. I went to bed around 3 am hoping I would wake up by the phone alarm in the morning. Instead, I woke up two hours later because my friend called to say she heard explosions,” Olena Dmytrenko explained over the phone. Olena works for Deloitte in the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv. As soon as the war started, she decided to go with friends by car to the countryside.
The traffic was extremely congested - they traveled for 17 hours, and it took them four hours just to leave Kyiv. Outside the city, they witnessed from the car how every place that they passed by had turned into battlefields.
Now Olena is in a village near the Ukrainian city Chernivtsi which is close to the border with Romania. She is in a house with 11 more people. She thinks that this is one of the safest places in Ukraine now because of the proximity to a NATO member. “If the violence reaches me, I may cross the border to Romania but for now I am not making any plans. Just living day by day.”
“At the moment there is not a truly safe place in Ukraine”
When the Russian attack started Slava, an IT specialist from the city of Dnipro, helped his girlfriend to move to his apartment for safety reasons. Now he says by phone that he spends his days busy with volunteer work. “We supply essential stuff for the hospitals. Everybody is helping with whatever he can - with military expertise, with medical care, or just by not panicking”.
If the fighting comes near him Slava won’t run. “At the moment there is not a truly safe place in Ukraine. At home at least you know who is who, and you could count on your neighbors. Traveling in times of war is more dangerous than staying”.
He is calling everyone in Europe and the USA “to organize demonstrations so that your governments see you. We are getting information about your support and we really appreciate all this”.
“It is cynical to explain that this is not war but some kind of an operation”
The Russian invasion found Ukrainian Artem Ponomarevskyi in the Lithuanian city of Kaunas where he has lived since 2020. He immediately started to organize the delivery of humanitarian aid to his home country. “The supermarkets are empty, and Ukrainians need food, clothes, medication. For the government - we are in a desperate need of weapons, ammunition, fuel”, he says on the phone.
Artem is furious at the Kremlin: “Very few people could imagine such cynicism - to tell the international community that this is not a war against Ukraine but some kind of an operation.”
He says that now no one in Ukraine is staying indifferent - people even with bare hands are going on the streets to stop the tanks. For his efforts Artem just says: “I am trying to help my nation with everything I can”.
