Violetta never thought her son would be joining the few Ukrainian refugees in Islington. She had planned on moving back to Ukraine from Islington on 1 March. Her 6-year-old son, Andrei, had already returned to live with her sister and mother near the Eastern city of Kharkiv, the place she and Andrei had called home for the last few years.
On 24 February, Russia invaded Ukraine. Violetta was separated from Andrei by 1,500 miles and a brutal aerial bombardment by Russian forces.
Violetta’s uncle chose to remain in Kharkiv, having taken up arms to fight, but her mother, aunt and sister decided to flee, taking with them Andrei and Violetta’s two nephews, aged eleven and 5-months old.
Violetta’s sister (whom she prefers not to name) lived in the rural outskirts of Kharkiv and although the soldiers and shells had not yet reached her doorstep, she could see and hear the bombing.
“When they blow up the centre of the town your heart breaks. It’s horrible”
At 4am, she called Violetta, who urged her to head west to somewhere safer. After four days of hiding in the bomb shelter as the children grew more and more afraid, she decided they had to flee.
The drive was an incredibly tense and stress-filled four days. At one point the family were forced to stop at a petrol station, in the hopes of finding a basement to shelter in, when an air-raid siren sounded. But there was not. Instead, Violetta’s sister bundled everyone into the car, and they drove on. She had only passed her test two months before and was now accelerating down the motorway in fear of being bombed from the sky.
They approached Chernihiv, a city that has come under intense shelling, where 47 were left dead after a strike on an apartment building. When they arrived at the outskirts, they were stopped by a local military patrol trying to secure the area.
The patrol told the family that, because they were strangers, there was no way to tell if they were Russians or terrorists. If they moved before the morning, the patrol would have to shoot the car to disable it. Violetta’s sister, who is in her thirties, the two elderly women and the three children were forced to spend the night in the freezing cold car, just outside a city under siege.
Violetta, meanwhile, travelled to Košice in Slovakia to meet them at the border. She hadn’t heard anything for three days and was worried sick. When she got to Košice she realised that she had no way of getting to the border; no one wanted to take her there, so she took a taxi to further up the border where she was at last reunited with Andrei.
The rest of her family decided to remain behind in Ukraine, yet only after they had handed Andrei over to Violetta. They are now living with 20 other refugees in a house near the Slovakian border, where it is safe, at least for now. Meanwhile, Violetta’s brother-in-law remains in Kharkiv, where it is far more volatile dangerous.
“I want my nephew who is five years old to grow up in a peaceful country”
Violetta and Andrei are now safely back in Islington. She has pre-settled status from her previous residency in London, so can remain for as long as she wants, and says people have been very welcoming to the Ukrainian refugees in Islington. After posting in the Islington community Facebook group, she says she received “millions of texts with warm wishes” asking if she needed anything.
Talking now, from the safety of Islington, she grieves the destruction of her home Kharkiv: “When you see video and they blow up the centre of the town your heart breaks. Your heart breaks. I’ve heard news of places where I was walking a few months ago and now they’ve blown it up. It’s horrible.”
“I want to talk about this because I want people to know the truth,” she continues. “My family, my sister and my aunt, they lost everything they had in the world in a second, because someone crazy like Putin wants to play games. But we are normal, peaceful people. We don’t want this political stuff. We don’t want it. I want my nephew who is five years old to grow up in a peaceful country. I want my nephew who is studying in school to have a good life. This is such a heart-breaking situation when you can’t do anything to help them.”
Violetta remains adamant that her country will continue to resist. “We are very brave but very small. But we are not going to give up. This is our land.”
