Living Behind The Frontline

Voices from Ukraine

(Olivier Del Fabbro)

Olivier Del Fabbro ist ein luxemburgischer Philosoph und lehrt als Oberassistent an der ETH Zürich. Er forscht unter anderem zur Philosophie des Krieges und reiste für forum in die Ukraine. In einem zweiteiligen Text beschreibt Del Fabbro die erschütternden Erfahrungen ukrainischer Frauen und Mütter unter der russischen Invasion. Hier geht es zum zweiten Teil.

With war comes horror and misery: fleeing from bombs and gunfire, loved ones fighting at the front, relatives staying in occupied territory, families torn apart. Peace is shattered, yet, little by little, civilians return to normal life where possible.

Before the Russian invasion, the Ukrainian non-profit organisation Save A Life International (SALI) supported and helped women in need and distress. Since February 2022, displaced fugitives from all over the country, pregnant women and entire families came knocking on SALI’s door for aid. Behind the frontline, one by one, women tell their stories, recounting what a year of war has been like for them, how they try to keep going and how they have rebuilt their lives and that of their families.

Divided Families

Ilona is a rather shy, soft-spoken woman with a petite build. She is also a survivor. Ilona is thirty-one, has five children and is an airborne soldier. Three months into the war, she escaped from Tokmak, a small city between Saporischja and Melitopol, with her four-month-old son, who was born shortly before the Russian invasion. The rest of her four children were brought to safety by their father. She did not see them for several months.

The day after the Russians invaded Ukraine on 24^th February 2022, Tokmak was occupied. Tanks rolled into the city and shells made the windows shake. With no space in the cellar of her apartment building, Ilona and her son hid in the basement of her in-laws, where they stayed for about two weeks. With her military background, Ilona had every reason to be afraid; the Russians immediately took control of crucial institutions like police stations and were looking for people who took part in the Ukrainian-Russian war.

It took two weeks for the situation to calm down and for people to slowly start to emerge from their hiding places. In this state of extreme stress, Ilona was not able to breastfeed her son. In desperate need of food, water and milk, she got creative. Ilona filtered the water from the radiators and mixed it with baby formula to feed her son.

Ilona notes that it was not her military background that helped her survive; it was being a mother. “When you’re under a lot of stress, you cannot allow yourself to panic, you have to pull yourself together and work through it in order to take care of others.“ Fear was a constant companion though. Ilona was not the only one in survival mode. With prices skyrocketing, people started stockpiling and turning on each other.

Escaping Tokmak was intense and chaotic. Luckily, Ilona’s first attempts failed. The first convoy of cars leaving the city with white flags came under Russian fire, killing everybody, children included. According to Ilona, the Russians did not want anybody to leave. Bribing them helped, whoever did not was in danger of getting killed if caught fleeing. Everybody wanted to leave, so it took a while for Ilona to plan her escape. “The most precious thing is life and I need to save my kid’s life.“ With a husband in the Ukrainian army, remaining in Russian occupied territory was not an option for Ilona.

“If you are going to leave us, I am going to hang myself“, Ilona’s mother-in-law said. That’s why Ilona waited until the very last moment to tell her parents-in-law that she would escape from the city the following day. At five o’clock on a morning in June, a car was waiting for Ilona. Her in-laws were crying: “The farewell was really bad.“ Fifteen checkpoints had to be passed, with nearby explosions and shelling. Then, the unthinkable happened. The car broke down in the middle of the road.

The driver refused to continue despite Ilona’s efforts to persuade him to keep going. He drove back to Tokmak, Ilona stepped out of the car and into another one. They arrived at a gas station where every vehicle was checked in groups of ten. They waited in line from ten in the morning until eight in the evening. It was a warm summer day. Suddenly, five planes flew low over the long line of cars, the last one dropping bombs close to the fugitives. “Just out of fun, to scare people. I covered my child and prayed, I was so scared“, Ilona says, still shook by the memory of that day.

Shortly after, Ilona was reunited with her husband in Zaporizhzhia. She now lives in Lviv, but “home is home“, she says. Yet, going home is not an option for Ilona, even though her in-laws are still in Russian occupied territory. Stationed in Donetsk area, her husband is not only fighting to unify Ukraine, but to free his parents from Russian occupation. How can they visit and spend time together if the Russian regime controls the region? Throughout history, war has divided families: in Germany after WWII, in Korea, in Vietnam… Is history going to repeat itself in Ukraine?

Music Is Everything

Nathalie is twenty-four years old and has a son, who was not yet born at the start of the invasion. Three months into Nathalie’s pregnancy, the bombs started to fall close to her home in Northern Kharkiv. A war? Impossible, Nathalie thought, until it really happened at five in the morning.

She fled to the basement of her grandmother’s place with her husband. As with Ilona, food supplies were running low, resulting in chaos. On the third day of the invasion, Nathalie’s husband found some food and while they were eating in the kitchen, a bomb landed in their front garden. “It didn’t explode, thank God, but I was so scared and shocked,“ Nathalie says with tears in her eyes. That was the moment they decided to leave. “On our way out, we saw some broken cars, some blood, some dead bodies, but I concentrated on shutting out everything around me. I thought that if I’d be nervous, I would lose my baby. Protecting my baby was my first priority.“ She only remembers the birds in the sky, flying in the opposite direction, towards Kharkiv, towards the invaders, towards war. “Who would want to go there?, were my only thoughts.“

After stops in Dnipro, Winniyzja, Nathalie and her husband ended up in Lviv. But she thinks about going back to Kharkiv every day: “My heart is there. My friends, my bassoon, my father-in-law, my family. It’s my home.“ Her friends already went back, but given the current situation she is unsure about moving. “I love my hometown so much. I don’t know if I can go back and see everything destroyed.“

When she first arrived in Lviv, Nathalie was not well and her mental health suffered. Constant news about the war made her worry about the future of her baby. Looking for ways to help, Nathalie started knitting camouflage nets for the military and cooking for other Ukrainians displaced from the East. “It gave me a purpose in life, to help.“ And then, there was also her faith. Praying gave her strength and helped her trust in God’s plan, she says. “War is always bad, historically. But why are the Russians killing all these people, even dogs and cats? Why?“, she says. “I don’t understand. It’s almost demonic. I don’t think I can ever forgive them. This is going to last for many generations.“

Nathalie is a musician. One of her regrets was leaving her bassoon in Kharkiv. The university where it was stored was mined and dangerous to enter. But Nathalie’s father-in-law managed to retrieve the instrument and sent it to her. When she talks about music, Nathalie’s eyes shine. She smiles and says: “For me, music is everything. The vibration of the other instruments in the orchestra. You just feel it. When you play, you feel happiness, fullness, life. When I am sad or have troubles, I just play and see how music can help me. I also play to my baby. When I talk to him, I am not sure if he understands me, but when I play music, he understands me. Music is a universal language.“ Music, so it seems, is the real solution to Nathalie’s troubles.

A Social Experiment

Lyuba is a single mother of two children. She fled from Zaporizhzhia two years ago – not from the Russians but from her abusive ex-boyfriend. “Life was very difficult with violence. I hoped my partner would change, but there were moments that were life threatening to me and my children.“ That’s when Lyuba, pregnant with her second child, found Safe a Life International (SALI) in Zaporizhzhia. They recommended that she should leave. “I had no idea where I was going. I grabbed my kid and just left. I told my partner that we were going to kindergarten, but we got on the train to Chernivtsi.“ Her ex-boyfriend tried to locate them. He went to the police claiming that she kidnapped the children. But SALI protected her. “It’s my life, my ministry. I thank God and this centre for being in my life. It was a really hopeless situation.“

Today, Lyuba is an employee at SALI and does administrative tasks such as answering the hotline. She sees herself in the clients and can relate to them in a special way. “I understand them better.“ But, more than that, she has become a role model for people who still have a difficult path ahead of them. SALI uses honesty and openness to show clients what family life can look like and how it can be dealt with. The staff lives together with the clients – as a united family, not separately.

Many humanitarian organisations such as Caritas or World Vision have religious backgrounds. SALI is no different. Based on Baptism – a religious minority in Ukraine –, the organisation does not require clients to be of Christian or Baptist faith, but it is required to climb the ladder, as Lyuba did, and be part of the organisational team.

Women can access three kinds of support at SALI, depending on what they need. They can get material support – for example children’s clothes, housing and medicine – and  psychological support. The organisation also offers personal counselling using so-called Christian psychology, which is based mainly on biblical principles, without neglecting scientific based psychology and other forms such as psychoanalysis.

The result is a social experiment based on self-organisation and self-reliance. When asked if SALI can rely on government subsidies and support, Alla Marivtsan, COO in Ukraine, answers: “No, we help the government. We were asked to teach in schools and to open up a center in Lviv when the war broke out.“ During the first two months of the Russian invasion, SALI had to process three thousand applications. The situation worsened, when the volunteers fled as well. Only in July 2022 did the situation for the centers stabilize. “But, then many refugees, who fled the country came back to Ukraine.“ So, again, more work? “We always have a lot of work.“ Alla emphasises.

SALI itself was established on a personal misfortune. Nadia Gordynsky, the founder and president of SALI, had a miscarriage eighteen weeks into her pregnancy. This event changed her life and Nadia realised that Ukrainian mothers needed practical solutions for pregnancy-related issues and daily family life. The rest is history.

The centres and the women volunteering there create a welcoming atmosphere for mothers and their children. The overall motto is positive: everybody can make it by working hard and believing in themselves. A lot of the women have had a difficult past and SALI is a place of mutual help, respect and care. In short: it’s about love.

Can War have a positive Side?

Natalia is another displaced mother from Kharkiv region, Balakliia. Unlike Lyuba, Natalia fled shortly after the invasion with her five kids, leaving behind her addicted and abusive husband when the Russians began shelling: “Their father was so drugged that he didn’t even realise we were leaving or what was going on. I needed to save my life and that of my children, so I wasn’t thinking about him at all.“ The pastor from her church gave her fifteen minutes to decide whether she wanted a van with space for twelve people to flee westward. She grabbed everybody, drove to Lviv, then crossed the Ukrainian-Polish border on foot and eventually ended up in Spain. She returned to Ukraine, amongst others, because her kids missed Ukrainian school.

Natalia’s house is destroyed and she does not know what happened to her husband. After she had left Balakliia, she heard that the next convoys were destroyed, killing civilians. Like Ilona she was very lucky; both women left at the right time. Natalia does not want to go back to her hometown. Her life there was hell, she says. And so for her, the war was an opportunity to start a new life and escape her abusive husband. It’s ironic that the horror of a war can mark the beginning of a new life.

“We have a saying: without an unhappiness, we wouldn’t have happiness“, Natalia says. She doesn’t find life that bad now because, before the war, her life was worse.

The Bulldog from Mykolaev

Nastia, thirty-nine, has a boy and was a major in the police force in Mykolaev before she left westward on 25^th February2022. She did not only flee from the Russians, she also ceased all communication with her Russian cousins. After calling them and telling them about the bombings and the attacks, her relatives denied everything, saying that it was “the Ukrainian army doing all that mess in the country.“ “No“, Nastia replies, “I saw the bombings.“ Their reply: “It’s not us, it’s that drug addict Zelensky who is behind all of this. No one is invading you. Stop talking nonsense.“ That’s when both parties cut all ties. “They’re brainwashed. They believed in Stalin and now they believe in Putin,“ Nastia concludes.

Leaving her home was particularly hard for Nastia, and it’s still difficult for her to talk about. The day before the war she packed the important documents – passports and the deeds to the house – and clothing for every season. “But what should I really take? Should I take the towels or not? The linen?“ Nastia ended up packing and unpacking her bags, three times.

She regrets not packing photos of her deceased parents and of her little boy, as well as her grandmother’s scarf. These familiar objects might have made the life of the displaced mother a little easier and kept the memory of her relatives close.

For Nastia it is very important to highlight that she had a good work ethic as a police officer, meaning, that she was not corrupt. Many times they tried to bribe her, every time she refused. Nastia worked on the ground, helping people in the neighborhood: drug addicts and alcoholics for example. “It’s a man’s job, but I was the only woman in my area. You have to be strong or they will eat you alive. I was severe and morally strong. My nickname was bulldog.“ Nastia got respect on the streets. Since she quit, her boss has called her many times to persuade her to come back to work. “When the war is over, I will go back to the police force. I think if it weren’t for my child, I’d be in the war.“

Nastia works as a volunteer in Chernivtsi. She gets humanitarian aid, but sends most of the donations on to the East to help others. Donating donations, so-to-speak. She went to different centres and offered to help in any capacity she could; “I wanted to be useful. I didn’t want to just be at home. My conscience is bothering me. If I can’t be on the front line, I want to be useful here.“ Nastia believes that good can overcome evil. She wants to be a role model. She gets a lot of help, so she wants to give back.

Nastia sees a psychologist once a week, who helps her a lot – all paid for by SALI. “Fate brought us together, I think. One day, I was just walking down a street and found SALI per coincidence. I call them my family.“

Nastia is a good example that SALI is not just for the faithful. She does not belong to any specific religious denomination and does not believe in God, yet she strongly believes that the work SALI is doing is so good, precisely because of their Christian faith.

“Even if my house is destroyed, I still want to go home.“ Nastia feels like a refugee in her own country because she’s not in her hometown. After the war, she wants to go back to the police force and set up an organisation to support people in need. It’s the idea of home that keeps her and her son going.

Not going home simply isn’t an option.