Next week marks a somber anniversary: three years since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, leading to the deadliest war in Europe since World War II. For many of the millions of displaced Ukrainians, the path to safety was a treacherous one. This is the story of one young man's escape from war-torn Ukraine. The post ‘The dream of living in Ukraine feels utopian’: One man’s escape from war-torn Ukraine appeared first on The World from PRX.
Three years ago, Pavlo Siryi, who goes by Pasha, of Vovchansk, Ukraine, said that he had heard the concern about Russian military activity near Ukraine but he hadn’t expected anything drastic to happen.
He said that older people seemed to be preparing back then, but younger people, like him, didn’t take it too seriously because fears about war seemed to surface every now and again.
Plus it was hard to make sense of it.
“Half my family is Ukrainian, and the other half is Russian. How can you have a conflict like that within one family?” he recalled.
Siryi didn’t know then that not too far north, tens of thousands of Russian troops were amassing near the border, just a handful of miles away from Vovchansk.
A few weeks later, on Feb. 24, 2022, Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine shocked the world. Next week marks the three-year anniversary of the deadliest war in Europe since World War II. Millions of Ukrainians have been displaced. For many, the path to safety was a treacherous one.
Siryi’s hometown, once idyllic, was especially vulnerable because it was so close to the Russian border.
Siryi, like the millions of displaced Ukrainians, is living a totally different life. For many, the path to safety was a treacherous one.
Russia’s military shelled the outskirts of Vovchansk. Siryi and his father fled to his grandparents’ home in a small village, about 20 miles south of Vovchansk. But they soon began to run out of food and fuel.
During a drive to a nearby gas station, they witnessed a Russian aerial attack. Siryi said that was the moment that he decided to flee. His family stayed behind.
At first, Siryi wanted to go to Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-biggest city. But he soon learned that all the roads to Kharkiv were cut off by Russian troops.
So, he and some friends decided to head north toward the Russian border. His highly risky plan was to escape the war by taking a circuitous journey through Russia.
Just the memory of that, he said, is deeply unnerving: “It’s a very cold and frightening feeling, just to remember those moments.”
Siryi said that he watched Russian tanks and armored vehicles roll into Ukraine, in the dark of night. Behind him, Vovchansk was dark.
“The electricity was shut off. The Russian towns up ahead were still bright,” he recounted.
At the border, he was interrogated for at least two hours.
“They asked questions based on Russian propaganda,” he said. “They asked, ‘Do you have Nazis in Ukraine? How many have you seen? Are you allowed to speak Russian in Ukraine?’”
Eventually, he was allowed to cross into Russia, but he had no desire to stay there.
His identity, he said, is Ukrainian: “Even though I mostly speak Russian, I wouldn’t want to be part of Russia.”
He wanted to make his way to the EU, but he was strapped for cash. All he had was about $150. He said that distant Russian relatives and friends helped him along the way.
Later, after traveling hundreds of miles north, Pasha crossed yet another border, into Latvia, leaving Russia behind.
“It was March 6, 2022. It was my birthday, and this was the best birthday gift the world could have given me,” he said. “That feeling of freedom, that all my fears are behind me, is the best feeling I’ve ever had.”
Since then, Siryi’s life has completely changed. He now lives in Switzerland and works in construction. He said that he’s lost his entire former life, including his best friend, Vladislav, who was killed near Lysychansk during a Russian artillery attack.
For a long time, he held out hope that one day he’d return to Vovchansk. He has a lot of fond memories of the city where he grew up.
“I had a lot of hobbies, like searching for old things in the forest with a metal detector, like riding a bike,” he said. “I had a full life there in Ukraine, and I had a lot of friends, my life was full of energy and full of interesting moments.”
But now, returning to the city would be impossible.
“Vovchansk is completely destroyed. It’s more destroyed than Stalingrad was during World War II,” he said.
News reports show Vovchansk is a front-line city and a ghost town. Ukrainian troops are in the southern part of the city, and Russia is in the north. The center of town is a battleground, obliterated by artillery fire.
“The dream of living in Ukraine feels utopian,” Siryi said.
He said he would “love to live in a peaceful Ukraine, with no war, or death, like in the rest of the civilized world.”
But, he called that a “childish desire.”
Siryi likes his new life in Europe — he’s thankful to have a job and the support of the Swiss government.
But in the end, “I was Ukrainian, I’m Ukrainian, and I will be Ukrainian for all my life, and this feeling is permanent.”
The post ‘The dream of living in Ukraine feels utopian’: One man’s escape from war-torn Ukraine appeared first on The World from PRX.
