Homeland

We are a family from Ukraine, from the heroic city of Kherson. Our family consists of four members: me, born on July 30, my wife, born on October 6, our daughter, born on March 23, and our son, born on September 3.

Let me start by saying that the counteroffensive on our city began on the first day of the war. The Russian armed forces began entering the city from the Crimean direction, crossing the Antonovsky Bridge. Kherson courageously resisted, but on March 1, the Russian army completely occupied the city.

On the first day of the war, we couldn't yet comprehend what had happened, but day and night, explosions thundered, fighter jets flew overhead, and columns of tanks passed. Our daughter began having nervous and panic attacks from the endless explosions. She realized that at any moment, a missile could hit our apartment and end her life. There were fragments of a downed missile that fell in our yard.

On the second day of the war, our family was forced to flee; my two children and I fled to another part of the city to find a bomb shelter (the basement of a multi-story building), because there were no bomb shelters in our neighbourhood, and no way to hide. We were forced to leave our homes and hide our children from the missiles and constant shelling. Our family lived in the basement for almost a month. Food was very hard to come by in the city, and armoured vehicles and tanks were roaming the city, making it dangerous to leave the shelter.

I tried to find at least some food, but it was very difficult at the time. A month after the invasion, we were lucky, and volunteers got us out of Kherson. They managed to negotiate with the occupiers and organize the evacuation of women and children from the occupied city. The volunteers tried to get us out of Ukraine so we could live for a while. Leaving was dangerous, but we had no other choice. Our sick children desperately needed help. We left the city in the morning, and convoys of vehicles were parked in a field for several days. Getting out of the vehicles was prohibited because there were mines and constant fighting all around. There were several families with children there, and our cars were constantly checked at gunpoint. There were several checkpoints with armed soldiers of Caucasian appearance. At each checkpoint, they approached us with a pistol, pointing it at our cars. The children were terrified and cried constantly. It was truly terrifying! We travelled to Czechia for almost five days.

On the fifth day, we reached Czechia, where we were granted temporary protection. We were taken in by a Czech family who tried to help. I spent four months in the occupied Kherson. During this time, I helped deliver medicine to the sick, collected essentials for women and children who were forced to flee nearby towns due to constant fighting, and donated blood to the wounded during shelling and bombing. Men of draft age were not allowed to get out under Ukrainian control. I then decided to leave the occupied Kherson through the Crimean Peninsula. This was very dangerous; everyone had to go through a strict screening process at the border. At the border, Federal officers interrogated us for a long time, looked for national tattoos, searched our belongings, searched our phones for any information that might be related to the war. This allowed them to detain us for a long six-hour humiliating interrogation, crossing the border. In Czechia, we had no money, so I had to work to support the family. In July, I left Kherson and started working in Europe.