Illustrated by Lidiia Holosko
“Running from your hometown is a big challenge. We refused several times, even when a green corridor was arranged. We believed Trostianets would be freed. We decided to leave after Russians came to us, pointed a weapon at us and said they needed our car keys. ‘No one gets hurt if we get these keys,’ they said. That’s when it got scary.” Before the war, 22-year-old Anastasiia used to be a fitness trainer, and now she, her husband and their son are forced to flee from Russian occupation to Poltava.
The woman says that on February 24 tanks already drove through Trostianets, Sumy Region (30 km or 19 miles from the Russian border). “In the town, the occupiers do whatever they want: take phones and cars, rob houses and shops, throw people out of their houses. They destroy and burn everything, roads are damaged. And they set up their roadblocks, walk and act like they own the place. I still don’t get how this can be true in the 21st century. How can one kill children and destroy everything around them with impunity?”
There’s no electricity, running water, heat, cell connection, all shops are closed or looted—no place to get food. Under occupation, almost nothing remains of the town.
“Our parents have stayed in Trostianets because they couldn’t leave my elderly grandparents. I learn about the situation in the town from them. A building near their neighbors’ place was blown up, dad took an injured man to hospital. The hospital has also been shelled even though the occupiers also use it. Women give birth in basements, hide there with their newborn babies.”
After leaving, Anastasiia learned that the occupiers robbed her in-laws’ house. “They smashed the window, broke in and started taking away everything they saw. When my father-in-law asked them to give things back, at least the documents, they kicked him out of his own house. They told him to go out and come back in an hour and a half. His neighbors called him to report that ten bags of his stuff were gone. They took his scooter, food, golden jewelry, money, phones, even clothes! Why would they need this?”
Nastia recalls how just recently they were preparing for her son’s first birthday party. “We were so happy, we planned to celebrate… And we spent the so-called celebration in the basement to the sound of gunshots and explosions. We wanted to save the baby, so the kid would have a normal life ahead.”
The family took a few possessions and evacuated via the humanitarian corridor to the closest peaceful city of Poltava. “If the war spreads, we’ll move to the West, but frankly, we really don’t want to.”
Nastia is afraid to come to her hometown and find out her house is gone. “Mom built it on her own with three kids, decorated each room with so much love! I dream of having a place to come back to. When this is over, I am going to give tours of Trostianets and be proud of my town.”
On March 28, the Ukrainian forces freed Trostianets from the occupiers.
Translated by Anna Syniashchyk
