Opinion: The war caught Svitlana Kuzminskaya by surprise. She was stuck in Mariupol, but separated from her sons in the city, then had to flee without them.
Russia would attack us
On the morning of Feb. 24, I was awoken not by explosions but by a fluffy cat demanding affection and food. I realized that the war had begun only after I’d had a cup of coffee and read the news on the internet. I jumped up and ran to an ATM for cash. There was already a long queue. People stubbornly stood in line, despite the sounds of powerful explosions.
Every day, our life got harder. Light, heat, water and gas were cut off in early March. We walked to fetch water from a spring one and a half kilometres away and waited in long lines in the cold for food under rocket fire. We lit candles and cooked outside over open fires. The first thing we burned was an easel that I had received for my birthday.
My sons were hiding in one of the deadliest areas of Mariupol in a deep basement. They lived with a large group of neighbours, along with cats, dogs, a hamster and a parrot. They came to the surface only to cook food near the entrance. Yevhen, who had been in treatment for a malignant brain tumour, came to visit us twice. The trek was long and dangerous. But he always tried to look cheerful and brought food and water for us in his backpack.
Our goal was to get to Zaporizhzhia, the nearest city controlled by Ukraine, but we could not avoid Russian-occupied Berdiansk and were stopped at a checkpoint. The Russian soldiers were very polite. They looked through our documents, asked where we were from and gave our granddaughter cookies. I understood later why they were so kind: They believed that we were running away not from Russian invaders but from Ukrainian “Nazis.
And then I saw the Ukrainian flag and Ukrainian fighters with tired eyes. “They are ours! Glory to Ukraine!” I shouted. We were met by a large, well-organized group of volunteers. They invited us to eat hot food and gave us warm clothes. We stayed in the car until morning and then drove through several cities to safety in western Ukraine.
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