Krystyna Hotie, 26: 'I woke up on February 24 to a video of explosions my friend had sent me. I thought it was a joke at first so I checked online. As soon as I realized what was happening, my immediate thought was, I have to leave the country, right now.'
Under martial law, men aged 18 to 60 must stay in Ukraine to fight so a large number of those fleeing are women, often with children in tow.
and I’ve started making videos explaining how to leave Ukraine. But I am still hopeful that there will be a victory in our country eventually.Photo Courtesy of Gabriella Idonije. Later that day we had a test drill to see where the bomb shelters were, which made it feel more real. After two days we students saw the fighting was getting worse so we decided to leave. The airport had been bombed so we tried to get a train but the station was too full – everyone was panicking and there were fights breaking out. With some friends, I got a hire car and drove close to the Hungarian border, then walked the last part.
On that Thursday I was woken up by my girlfriend walking around — she had heard the explosions. Then all my friends started calling me. Everyone in the city was trying to get taxis. By pure luck we found a free one and managed to get a train to Lviv, in the west. We could hear explosions the whole way — it was terrifying., which helps LGBTQ+ people from all Russian-speaking countries. We arranged to meet one of their volunteers at the Polish border and they took us to Berlin.
The fighting isn’t close to my city so we are all focused on trying to help those fleeing and gathering aid for the rest of the country. I teach linguistics at the university and my students and I are helping translate people’s documents — for example, if they have medical conditions and need treatment. I am really worried about people I know in other parts of the country though.
My husband and I were sorting our papers to go home when we got the news. After helping our Airbnb guest flee to Poland, we started panicking. We had no income and nowhere to go.