They won’t leave. In the aftermath of the outbreak of the Russian offensive in Ukraine, some French people living in the territory say they are ready to stay there – neither the bombings, nor the threats from Vladimir Putin, nor France’s call to leave the country have for the moment convinced to abandon their adopted homeland. While around 100,000 people have fled their homes in Ukraine since yesterday, and thousands of them have already left the country according to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, these reckless expats have agreed to tell The Express their motivations.
Jacky L., director
Until Thursday morning, “everything was going well” for Jacky. Comfortably installed in his house in the city of Zhytomyr, in northern Ukraine, this septuagenarian was finishing editing the film on which he has been working for several years – a documentary on the post-Chernobyl era. Fallen “in love” with Ukraine during his filming days, he has lived there for three years, settled down, bought a house with a balcony, got into his little habits, met other French expatriates. “I’m good there. I have friends, lots of projects in mind, professional initiatives to make Ukrainian culture known to the French, for example,” he explains. But the Russian invasion turned everything upside down. “We are entering a real disaster, everyone is caught in the head”.
While bars and restaurants were still full in Zhytomyr on Wednesday, “perhaps to show that we were not afraid and that we braved the danger”, according to Jacky, the atmosphere changed radically on Thursday morning. A queue of “at least” a kilometer took shape at the town’s gas station, while the small local grocery store, usually frequented by one or two customers, was taken by storm. “It was full of people, with shelves emptied of water, flour”, testifies the director. “In the small markets, where the amounts are not fixed, the price of food has doubled”. From the window of his balcony, the septuagenarian noticed during the afternoon a “big black smoke in the distance”, while his friends warned him of the arrival of Russian tanks at the level of the city of Ovroutch , 130 kilometers north of Zhytomyr – much closer to the Russian border. In the streets of the village, his Ukrainian neighbors naturally gathered to sing the national anthem, hand on heart. “We all understood that life was going to change,” says Jacky.
One of his closest friends called him Thursday morning to drop off his cat and the keys to his house. The man leaves to settle in Hungary. “There is a big movement of panic. In my city, three French people who have been living for a long time are leaving, it’s huge!”, Estimates Jacky. And he, could he flee? “To go where?”, replies the director tac au tac. “The roads are full, I don’t even know if there will be enough petrol for everyone to reach the borders. And leaving your house means saying to yourself that you won’t find it whole.” The Frenchman’s decision is made: while he assures that he has nowhere to go in France, he will stay. Jacky also affirms that he “fears nothing” for his safety, but is indignant at Putin’s decision to invade his adopted country. “How can a man want to put the Earth at his feet? And how is it possible that in the 21st century, we can’t stop him?”. However, Jacky understands that her daily life will be turned upside down. “I’m going to lose friends, I’m going to be slowed down in my plans, my travels. But this country welcomed me, it would be a part of cowardice to leave now. The dice are cast, I will stay there”, he concludes, aware that his testimony will be valuable. “I will communicate as much as necessary”, warns the director, referring us to one of his friends… Also called Jacky. “He’s an old man, he will stay, like me”.
Jacky C., retired
“There is no hesitation, we are staying,” confirms Jacky C. a few hours later, overwhelmed by interview requests. This retiree from the Ministry of Youth and Sports also wishes to bear witness to “the reality” of the situation in Jyromyr, where he has been living with his Ukrainian wife since September 2020 and from where he leads the national team of glider flight. When the beginnings of the war began, this adventurer wanted to offer his wife a way out. “We have contacts in France, Spain, Belgium, we could be accommodated in a great villa in Italy! But my wife does not want to leave her country, nor her family, nor her friends. So we stay”, sums up Jacky . On Thursday, as television broadcast the death toll and Russian attacks on Ukrainian soil on a loop, the 60-year-old and his wife took the time to undergo first aid training at the local Red Cross. “We will face two, and if it ends badly, it will end badly. But we will help people around us”.
For a few days, Jacky felt that “everything was going to screw up”. But not to this extent. “We thought it would be limited to the East, and we finally saw on television that the fighting was hard in Chernobyl, Mariupol, Kiev… The airbase located five kilometers from our home was attacked!”, says the expatriate, sounded. “It’s not the little guerilla, there. It’s war”. During the day, the man and his wife went “to make an inventory of the little grannies in the area” who might need them in the days to come. At gas pumps, ATMs, the supermarket, they say they have seen long queues, and an anxious population. “But they are an immensely courageous people: women are already organizing meetings on how to protect themselves, how to store the fleet or how to bury the dead,” says Jacky.
In the meantime, the 67-year-old retiree says he is “ready”. “We’ll put tape on the tiles so that they don’t explode in our heads if necessary, and we already know where to place the mattress in the living room to take shelter. I feel capable of doing face”. Apart from his friend Jacky L., no Frenchman he knew stayed in Jyromyr. “And I tell you frankly, if my wife weren’t so badass, I might have gone west,” says Jacky, who now relies on the French embassy and consular services to ensure her safety. safety “in case things get out of hand”.
Cyril, photographer
Cyril, too, quickly understood “that it was going to blow up”. On Wednesday evening, this father who has been living in Ukraine for 20 years received a message on his mobile phone from the French Embassy calling on his nationals to “leave as soon as possible”. But like his compatriots, the man did not expect such an invasion from Russia. “There is always hope, it’s hard to imagine that we can wake up overnight in a country at war in 2021,” he says, annoyed. A photographer in the city of Lviv, in the west of Ukraine, Cyril has been trying since yesterday to take stock of the information that reaches him from his friends, his family and the various media, which relay the explosions and the number of victims. “We have a lot of news that goes a bit in all directions, I try to get information from my relatively reliable sources. But it’s very difficult,” he testifies.
Coming out on Thursday, Cyril also saw long queues in front of banks or pharmacies, but claims to have not yet heard any detonations in his city. Some of his relatives have already decided to leave, including several French friends. “They feel helpless, but they are obviously not happy to flee. No one wants to leave,” insists Cyril. For him and his family, it is still too early. “Of course we think about it, we’ve been asking ourselves the question for two weeks already. But we have my wife’s family here, I want to stay together. I don’t want to have the impression that we’re leaving them, “explains this father of two children, aged 5 and 10. “For the moment, we avoid talking to them too much about it, we don’t want to create unnecessary stress in them. But they feel that something is going on, obviously”.
In the meantime, Cyril and his wife are trying to organize themselves with the few remaining French people, and are counting on the French embassy in the event of “force majeure”. Yesterday, the photographer offered his help to one of his friends living in Kiev, promising him accommodation in case he fled to the West. “We support each other, we will not hesitate to give medicines or clothes to the civilian population who could arrive here”, he assures. Worried about the advance of Russian troops, the Franco-Ukrainian nevertheless admits having set a limit: if Vladimir Putin’s soldiers take Kiev and overtake it, he will ask “real questions”. “We have a plan B, and even a plan C”, he confides, referring to the house of an architect friend in Poland in which he could go into exile or those of friends and relatives who could accommodate his family. in Europe. “But we would like to stay as long as possible, not to leave everything”.