“It’s a dark night for Ukraine. You should know that several cities are being attacked by Russia.” It was with this disturbing text that Anna, a 34-year-old Franco-Ukrainian, was awakened this Thursday, February 24. From her bed in Nantes, the young woman received various panicked messages and calls from her relatives who remained in Ukraine: from 4 a.m., Russian President Vladimir Putin launched a vast military operation on the territory, in order to , according to him to defend the pro-Russian separatists in the east of the country. Various explosions were thus heard in Kiev, the capital, as well as in Kharkiv, the country’s second city, in Odessa, a port city on the Black Sea, in Mariupol, close to the front area, or even in Kramatorsk, headquarters of the Ukrainian army located in the east of the territory.
“I have friends or family in each of these regions and the situation is terrible. It’s a real shock, we’re in the middle of a nightmare”, breathes Anna, worried. Despite rising tensions in recent weeks, she did not expect such an invasion. “My husband even thought it was a bad joke. But it’s the reality: no one is safe anymore, even in Kiev. Where will Putin stop?” Asks the young woman.
Like her, hundreds of Ukrainians living in France were awakened early Thursday morning by the distressing news of their relatives back home. “My whole family called me, my hometown was bombed. It’s scary,” says Vlada, a master’s student in architecture at the University of Grenoble. Originally from Dnipro, in the east of the country, the student discovered, horrified, the photos of her city “on fire” shared by her friends. “The sky was red, it was impressive. We tell ourselves that it is not possible, that we are dreaming.”
Very quickly, Vlada worries about her little brother, who has just celebrated his 18th birthday. Left a week ago for the national football championship of Ukraine, in Kiev, the young man tried to flee in disaster the capital to join the rest of the family in Dnipro, from the first hours of the invasion this Thursday. “But we have no more news for the moment, the network does not pick up well and I have lost all connection with it”, alarms the future architect.
His parents, who came to visit him in Grenoble for the holidays, are “distraught” by the situation. Their return flight was canceled and their bank card blocked. “My mother has been crying since [jeudi] morning. Imagine, your 18-year-old son lost in a country at war overnight, it’s panic”, testifies Vlada. While the air links have for the moment been cut off from and to Ukraine, the student assures that she will welcome her parents in France “as long as necessary”. “But my family will not leave the country definitively. To do what, to go where? It all seems unreal to me.”
“They are all appalled”
While Kiev indicated, Thursday during the day, that at least 40 soldiers and a dozen civilians had already been killed, panic was gradually spreading to the Ukrainian community in France. “I am very touched by what is happening, I imagine my family frightened, attacked. It is very difficult”, confides Alina, who arrived in France at the age of 17. Recently graduated from a master’s degree in economics at the University of Lille, the young woman has been following the “inconceivable and unacceptable” events in Ukraine since Thursday morning through notifications from her phone and reports broadcast repeatedly on the TV channels. information.
His cousin, who studies online in the city of Vinnytsia, called him in the morning, more than anxious. “He curled up in his room because he’s scared, his apartment is on the tenth floor of a building that was shaking from the shelling.” Immediately, Alina offered to join her in France as soon as he wished, but his parents and grandparents have already assured him that they would not leave their country. “Their job is there, their life too,” she concludes, holding back a sob.
Iryna Linde, Franco-Ukrainian from the city of Lugansk, agrees: “My whole family called me to tell me that they hear planes, shells, explosions. Some saw fires, they are all dismayed. ” Exiled in France for more than twenty years, she wishes to salute the courage of her compatriots. “They are trying to withdraw cash, refuel and leave major cities as calmly as possible, but not all of them want to leave the country just yet.”
“They can count on me”
To relatives who would still like to flee their homeland until the conflict calms down, Iryna assures that they will always be welcome at her home, in the Paris region. “Those who have the possibility of crossing the border, by any means, will be welcomed. They can count on me, she insists, her voice trembling. Even if I never thought I would offer such a solution to my girlfriends living in western Ukraine or Kiev.”
“In my life, I would never have thought of offering this to my parents,” adds her compatriot Iryna Lempeka, president of the Lille association Portail de l’Ukraine. His father, a teacher at the University of Kiev, and his mother, retired, refuse for the moment to leave the country. “In their head, they must stay. They are shocked and anxious, but it is at home”, she underlines.
Living in France since 2005, Iryna says she is “outraged” by the news that reaches her from her country of origin. “We will do everything to help, no one will stand idly by,” she added, referring to the organization of demonstrations every weekend in the major cities of France, the reception of donations to be redirected to the association. France-Ukraine charity medical fund, or the possible reception of certain Ukrainian refugees on French territory. “We hope that the government will take its responsibilities and offer hospitality to possible war refugees.”