A War of Independence. Fight or Flight
A third article in a series dedicated to my personal memories of events that are related to Russo-Ukrainian War, its new and active phase that started 24.02.2022. Check below for the rest of the articles.
Part 2. Fight or Flight
The Flight
As one of my colleagues from Solarisbank aptly said: “If you imagine a line from 0 to 100, where 0 is “get the fuck out of here” and 100 “coming to slaughter the Russians”, I was at 0”. We all were: IT folks like me usually have no prior military training or experience, most of us never held firearms. We would not survive for a long time in a battle zone, so it was decided from the start. I decided to flee from Ukraine.
With an aim of fitting a roof-mounted cargo box on top of my car I approached my car along with Kate, my girlfriend. The cargo box was at my parent’s flat not far from where I rent. But there was something wrong with my car.
The internal wiring inside the car was exposed and the cover was on my backseat. I have noticed out of the corner of my eye a suspiciously-looking man that was staring at my vehicle before I opened it and who walked away as I got inside. Never in my life in Kyiv have I experienced anything like it. It was scary, but we were focused on our task and proceeded.
On our way to install the roof-mounted cargo box and back we encountered many people with suitcases, packets, bundles, etc. Living in Ukraine, people understood what was about to happen.
I was approached by a student from India (there’s a large international hostel right in front of where we are renting) when packing most our personal belongings in a car. He asked me whether I spoke English. I said “yes, I do”. He asked whether it was safe in Kyiv now. I gave him one of my sourest looks. He asked whether I was planning on moving to western regions, and to which ones. I didn’t have an answer at that point, so I nodded when he suggested Lviv as a destination. But then he asked whether it’s going to be safer there. I really had no clue.
I had to abandon my LCD monitor to leave a little room for two: my co-worker and his wife, who asked to join us in our evacuation. Little space was left for their bags, but I cannot tell how difficult was it to make room for people and their things by abandoning our belongings under strict time pressure. I am a perfectionist and there was simply no perfect answer to the packing problem. Having packed all that I could squeeze, I disconnected my gigabit router and said: “From now on this is no longer our home”.
Kate and I desperately looked for notary to sign the permit for using the car abroad. After paying my relative’s debt to the government it was only a matter of time before the end of vehicle’s arrest. And provided that the car was not arrested, I could travel abroad only with a notary-signed permit. Having stop at some point in Obolon (Kyiv), we heard a low explosion sound, coming from afar that made the car vibrate. It was a sound of war, but I insisted that we focus on our current task. We were able to find one near 11 a.m. His office was locked with a key when we came over, there was no light and he only accepted cash. He promised to add the entry to the government registry in case it was non-responsive. His young daughter and wife were there, urging him to hurry and finish his business. If you are reading this, God bless you! You enabled me to cross the border and I’ll be forever grateful.
After having bought some food I drove my relative back to his home and decided to think on evac route. My co-worker decided it was too dangerous and stupid to leave Kyiv at this point, as there were reports of 10+ hour traffic jams to leave Kyiv (on E40) and reports of 20+ helicopters with Russian Special Forces aboard in Hostomel, a place that I highly liked when choosing a townhouse, just ~5km from Kyiv’s border. So, one of the most potent escape routes was cut off (E373 I planned on taking, as it was not as popular as E40, but with very decent road quality). I had to come up with a new plan.
Native Kyiver
I was born and raised in Kyiv, on the left bank of Dnipro river (well, except for 3 years when I studied in the UK that is). I drive around on my dad’s car (2007 Subaru Forester), legally owned by my dad’s uncle. One of the few, infrequent activities we did together with my dad, otherwise a busy tax lawyer, was to gather mushrooms or stroll through the woods. And I grew loving natural landscapes and visits to forests, lakes, parks and rivers surrounding Kyiv. Our family has a village house built by my grandfather. It is quite close to Vasylkiv, Kyiv region. We also have a farm (snails grown for export was supposed to be the main profit source, but it’s not the only thing being grown there) 20 km from Kaniv which my dad wanted to sell to some international investors this year.
I am also familiar with navigation on longer-term trips. We had a 1-month car trip to Balkan region with several of my friends and 1-week trip across the Spanish coast with Kate. The point is, I know my way around Kyiv and there was no way I was going to be stuck in some traffic jam or attacked from some unexpected direction on the road. So I plotted a course, picked up my university friend and his girlfriend who phoned me looking to a way out of Kyiv and drove away.
Have you heard the news?
My university friend was not going to leave Kyiv. Neither was his girlfriend, Tanya. They lived in suburbs and didn’t think anything might have happened. Until Tanya briefly saw a chunk (about 3-meter in diameter) of an airplane on what seemed like a collision course with their house. Luckily, it flew by it and crashed near new multi-storied building construction site. Needless to say, they quickly packed 4 bags and left to join us in a car trip of a lifetime.
We saw a column of cars trying to escape small roads between villages. We saw many military vehicles and a tank. We heard low sound of an airplane, circling around the civilian vehicles column, but we have not seen it. And we deliberately kept quiet or talked about unrelated matters, as we were not sure that the Russian Army was not listening to all our devices in real time at that point. Of course, I don’t have any pictures to prove that. I was the driver and besides — taking pictures of our Ukrainian Armed Forces is strictly prohibited, as it serves as intel for the enemy.
We read the news while on the road. We saw video of a military vehicle running over a civilian one in Obolon which we departed from just 2 hours ago. We read about destruction of a bridge on E373 to stop the military advance into Kyiv. We read about Russian Army taking control of Chernobyl Power Plant (or rather what is left of it). We read about invaders taking several cities in Donbas and advancing further. We read about heavy fighting near Vasylkiv airport, which was a part of the evacuation route that I discarded. We read about an explosion due to bombing in major heat power station we passed along 1 hour ago. We read about airfights above a city that we passed by. It was very difficult to comprehend that death itself was following our footsteps and it was only getting worse
We read some positive news too. We learned that the person who was ran over in Obolon survived, but the crew of the military vehicle that ran him over didn’t. A fighter ace pilot nicknamed “Ghost of Kyiv” downed 6 Russian airplanes during that day. We learned that the advancement of Russian Special Operations divisions to Kyiv was stalled, many of them neutralized. Our president was still alive and was not going to flee from Kyiv. We read that territorial defense units composed of trained civilians were handed over weapons in Kyiv.
Total mobilization
After dropping Tanya and my university friend at her parent’s house in Kyiv region, I had a first meal that day, it was warm and it was one of the best things that happened that day. It was 7 p.m.. One of the two dogs that they evacuated pissed on my leg while I was eating, but her parents were kind enough to offer me spare socks (mine were packed deeply in car’s belly). I washed out the sock, put it in the trunk and continued our journey to the border with Kate. Tanya’s parents insisted that we stay overnight, but I was scared that total mobilization would be declared and we would not be able to cross the border legally. I urged the two of them to come with us, but they refused.
I coordinated with my other university friend who traveled by car and we decided to try and cross the border overnight. One of my friends crossed Romanian border in the morning and another one fled to Hungary in late evening. We were reasonably hopeful at this point.
When we got back on the road, I asked Kate to read the news to me. Kyiv’s left bank was struck by rockets. Brovary, a town 20km east from Kyiv was attacked from air. Hostomel (5 km northwest of Kyiv) was burning and new troops continued to arrive on helicopters, despite the personnel and equipment losses. Many rocket strikes also landed in Kharkiv, Sumy, on most of the airfields throughout Ukraine and in many other towns and cities. People dressed as Ukrainian Armed Forces tried to break through towards the center of Kyiv, the supposed location of president. Kyiv was defending against waves of saboteurs and special ops — successfully so far, but they were getting deeper and deeper towards the center. It was going to be a long night.
Near midnight, we learned that total mobilization was declared. De jure the border was closed for all Ukrainian men 18–60. We decided to test whether it is going to be closed de facto. The hope was fading in the night.
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Series:
Part 0. Historical Context. The European Choice
Part 2. Fight or Flight
