Ukraine evacuees leave war in the east for safety and uncertainty in the west

Refugees from Debaltsevo: Yuri Sherbakov, 59, center, in Svetlogorsk, Ukraine (Sergey Ponomarev/for The Washington Post)

By Karoun Demirijian February 6 at 5:00 AM

ARTEMIVSK, Ukraine — As the minibus crammed with elderly evacuees idled at the

gas station on the outskirts of town Tuesday, Olga Tarasenko, 65, broke down.

For several weeks, Tarasenko was holed up in the basement of her apartment building

30 miles southeast in the city of Debaltseve, hiding from near-constant shelling that

has turned the area into the latest bloody epicenter of fighting between Ukrainian

troops and pro-Russian rebels.

Ukrainian soldiers are nearly surrounded by separatist forces in Debaltseve, which

until recently was best known as a rail hub connecting several mining towns in the

industrial east — a valuable prize to the victor, if the infrastructure survives the battles.

But after two weeks without water, electricity, heat and dwindling hope, thousands of

residents of Debaltseve say their hometown is more akin to hell. Tens of thousands

more hiding out in other towns along the front line are also seeking to escape. But

wartime conditions and meager resources have prevented the rescuers — mainly

adventurous volunteers — from shuttling out more than a few dozen at a time.

“We thought it would end,” Tarasenko said, clenching her teeth through tears as she

recounted melting winter snow for water, and taking pills to numb the hunger pains.

“We are hostages of this situation. We’re not for anybody anymore. We’re just for

nobody shooting us anymore.”

On Friday, rebel leaders announced that there would be a temporary ceasefire for

several hours to allow for the evacuation of additional civilians from Debaltseve area.

It is not clear exactly how many residents will be evacuated during the ceasefire, which

is scheduled to end shortly after nightfall.

When the war came to Debaltseve in mid-January, chaos and disorder soon followed.

Escaping residents described dead bodies left in the streets: If the bullets don’t get you,

many warned, the packs of dogs prowling the smoldering city might.

Getting to safety by going to the main city administration building — itself the target of

shelling that officials believe is intentionally directed at civilians — or by climbing to

the upper floors of a building to get a cellphone signal is dangerous.

No one knows exactly when help will arrive, but when it comes, evacuees must move

quickly and lightly: Only one or two bags each because there are almost always more

people than spaces on the minibuses. Full-size busses would be sniper targets on the

one road back to Ukrainian-controlled territory.

.

‘Just go’

Alexander Petrov, 23, was sitting at a desk in the Temple of the Holy Spirit in

Kramatorsk, a church that has been turned into a shelter for fleeing women and

children that sees more than 70 new families a day, when his phone started ringing

Monday afternoon: People in a basement in Myronivka, a village near Debaltseve,

needed help to escape the shelling.

For the next few minutes, Petrov, the church pastor, and a few potential volunteers

conferred about whether they should go. Just the day before, one of their minibuses

had been hit on a run to Debaltseve, and they had to leave it behind.

“We have to go. Just go,” Petrov said, ending

the debate. “These people have been waiting

since seven in the morning to get out.”

The road to Debaltseve runs through wide-

open country, while the city sits above on

higher ground, increasing the risk of sniper

or rocket attacks against volunteer drivers inRaisa Drobitko, 73, with her husband Vadim, 76, refugees from Debaltsevo pose for photo in Svetlogorsk, UKraine. (Sergey Ponomarev/for The Washington Post)

unarmored cars. Though Ukrainian emergency services ministry and Donetsk regional

authorities have gotten involved, rescues are still largely volunteer operations.

Natalia Kirkach, 40, who founded Slavic Heart, a volunteer organization she has run

since June, started evacuating people from various towns and cities along the front two

weeks after she was displaced by fighting in Slovyansk this summer.

Kirkach specializes in door-to-door rescue operations — a high-risk approach because

it requires spending more time in cities under constant shelling. There are few places

Kirkach will not go to rescue people, but before every evacuation run, she still gets a

knot in the pit of her stomach.

“I wake up, and I look at my sleeping children,” she said, with a break in her normally

businesslike and confident tone . “I kiss them, and I hope I will come home.”

There is also an adrenaline rush that comes with this work, especially when it’s

successful. Since she started, Kirkach said her volunteers have evacuated more than

23,000 people.

On Monday, six hours after he scrambled together a quick rescue mission, a sweaty

Petrov strode into the Slovyansk train station on the crutches he’s used since surviving

cancer as a teenager, and collapsed, satisfied, on a bench in the waiting room.

“I saved 21 people today, eight of them children,” he said. “It was cool.”

Truly lost

Where the road ends for volunteers, a harder one begins for the new evacuees.

On Monday night, the Slovyansk train station was overrun with Debaltseve evacuees,

some claiming spaces on stationary sleeper cars that had been set up as temporary

shelter, others clamoring at the ticket office for spaces on the few trains to safer

destinations: Kharkiv, Kiev and even Lviv, about as far west as one can get without

leaving Ukraine.

Piotr Oponasenko, 68, was headed to Kharkiv to stay with a daughter. But the reunion

would be bittersweet, he said, as a few days before, his disabled wife and younger

daughter had gone to Russia. It was easier for her to escape in that direction in her

wheelchair, he explained, since he couldn’t carry her. He doesn’t know when he will

see them. “But it is better to be alive than to have my things,” Oponasenko said.

But without home, some are truly lost.

“Nobody needs us,” said Natalia Petrenko, 33, whose husband, a firefighter in

Debaltseve, stayed behind. “There is no accommodation, no work.”

“We don’t know where to go,” said Oksana Antonova, 38, who dodged shells in

Debaltseve to deliver humanitarian aid from basement to basement, until she decided

it was time to go. On Tuesday, Antonova piled her son, husband, and mother- and

father-in-law into one of Kirkach’s minibuses to Svyatogorsk, a mountainside summer

resort full of mostly unheated cottages that has been transformed into a camp nearly

overflowing with people displaced by the war.

When the evacuees talk about where they’re going, there is a mix of emotions: relief to

be away from the shelling, frustration and fear for loved ones left behind, and whom

they cannot reach by phone.

Their choices are also colored by politics. Going to Russia was an option. But these

evacuees are mostly not in favor of the rebels, and want to be a part of Ukraine. Most

prefer some sort of federalized status, to restore the region some of its former Soviet

glory as an industrial center.

Perhaps it was fate, then, that after winding through rows of cottages, the minibus

carrying the Antonovas stopped in front of a small building called the Slavia:

Ukrainian for Slavic land. Once inside, their faces brightened.

Two rooms, each about 10 feet by 10 feet with one queen-sized bed, would have to fit

five. Not all the lamps worked. But it was heated, and — most exciting , as Antonova

pointed out — there was a shower, promising untold comforts after two weeks of

hiding out in a basement.

“Compared to the way we were living,” Antonova said, “this is heaven.”

Natalie Gryvnyak contributed to this report.

Posted by Thavam