- Title: Six months into the war, Ukrainian refugee agonises about returning
- Date: 23rd August 2022
- Summary: (SOUNDBITE) (Russian) UKRAINIAN REFUGEE IN POLAND, TATIANA AFANSIEVA, SAYING: "I want to go home. I wish I could go home today. If only they would say, 'That's it, we're safe there, you can go back.' - If only I was told that we can safely return, I would leave on foot now. Well, because, it's just impossible to explain in words. When we were on our way (to Poland) from Lviv, we spent eight hours on the train, and we cried for all those eight hours. I only barely recovered after the third day, I had everything (face, eyes) swollen, because the separation with my husband was very hard, really hard." AFANSIEVA STANDING, TALKING (SOUNDBITE) (Russian) UKRAINIAN REFUGEE IN POLAND, TATIANA AFANSIEVA, SAYING: "We have this war that started on the 24th (of February). For a few days, we were still at home. We had no idea of what we were going to do. Every day, I was getting ready to get in the car and leave. But we had no fuel, our roads were jammed, and my dad kept telling me: 'Don't go, there will be tanks going by, they will drive over you, they will stamp on you. Don't go by car, don't leave.'" AFANSIEVA STANDING, TALKING AFANSIEVA'S HAND AFANSIEVA STANDING, TALKING / DAUGHTER EVA PICKING BOTTLE OF JUICE FROM FRIDGE (SOUNDBITE) (Russian) UKRAINIAN REFUGEE IN POLAND, TATIANA AFANSIEVA, SAYING: "When I was on the way, I had no idea how hard it would be for me, and we were in such a state of shock that we simply boarded the train. We just took the train to Lviv, and only when we were on the train we started thinking about where next to go from Lviv. I mean, we didn't even know... we didn't know anything." AFANSIEVA WALKING WITH DAUGHTER AND FRIEND AFANSIEVA'S SON, NIKOLAY, STANDING ON SLIDE AFANSIEVA'S DAUGHTER, EVA, PLAYING ON SWING AFANSIEVA TALKING, CHILDREN PLAYING ON SWING ON BACKGROUND VIEW FROM APARTMENT WINDOW / AFANSIEVA STANDING, TALKING (SOUNDBITE) (Russian) UKRAINIAN REFUGEE IN POLAND, TATIANA AFANSIEVA, SAYING: "What I’m being told is that life goes on, as usual, people have jobs, and there are many internally displaced people. Many people from the occupied city of Kherson came to our city of Kryvyi Rih because it’s the closest city where there is a possibility to go (from occupied Kherson). There are many people now, the trolleybuses are full of people, and life is in full swing. People got used to (the war), when there are air raid sirens you just turn around and continue sleeping. You have to morally accept this, to accept it for what it is. One could say 'ok, I accept this' and come back home, but I don’t think that I could handle it. People there already got used to those (air-raid) sirens, they don’t react to them. People who return (to Kryvyi Rih) need about a month to get used to this." CHILDREN ON SOFA, WATCHING THEIR TELEPHONES (SOUNDBITE) (Russian) UKRAINIAN REFUGEE IN POLAND, TATIANA AFANSIEVA, SAYING: "My family? My family is in Ukraine, my family is not here. I'm here alone with my children. Yes, we live together with Katia, everything is fine. (There is) Good people around us. But family is family, it is the most fundamental thing, it is the meaning of life. Family is everything to me." AFANSIEVA STANDING, TALKING, DAUGHTER IN LIVING ROOM, WALKING AFANSIEVA STANDING, TALKING (SOUNDBITE) (Russian) UKRAINIAN REFUGEE IN POLAND, TATIANA AFANSIEVA, SAYING: "And when you realise it's already been five months, it's almost half a year, it's half a year of my life. Ripped off from... ripped out of my life simply. I had no life for these six months, it's not a life, it's not a life. I don't want to live like that. No, no, no, no." AFANSIEVA STANDING, SOBBING AFANSIEVA STANDING, TALKING
- Embargoed: 6th September 2022 12:40
- Keywords: Poland Poznan UKRAINE Ukrainian refugees in Poland war in ukraine
- Location: POZNAN, POLAND
- City: POZNAN, POLAND
- Country: Poland
- Topics: Europe,Asylum/Immigration/Refugees,Government/Politics,Editors' Choice
- Reuters ID: LVA003006123082022RP1
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text:Tatiana Afansieva, 34, dreams of returning to Ukraine from her life of exile in Poland.
But despite neighbors back home in Kryvyi Rih telling her that Russian shelling there has stopped, she is afraid to go back.
She said life in her hometown is back to normal.
"People got used to (the war), when there are air raid sirens you just turn around and continue sleeping," she said.
But she doubts she can handle that life, she told Reuters from her room in a flat she shares with a Polish woman who wanted to help refugees in Poznan, western Poland.
A mother of two, Afansieva fled the central city of Kryvyi Rih in March, shortly after Russia attacked Ukraine on Feb. 24, becoming one of roughly 6.7 million Ukrainians forced to leave by what Moscow calls its "special military operation."
Like more than a million refugees, she has made a temporary home in Poland, Ukraine's western neighbour, relying on the kindness of strangers and government aid.
And just like many of them, six months into the war, she has no idea when, or if, she will be able to return.
After several rounds of western sanctions launched against the Kremlin since the start of the war, diplomats acknowledge they are limited in how they can significantly further pressure Russia and force it to back down.
Meanwhile, after an initial outpouring of public support for refugees resources are drying up and property agents in many places find it increasingly difficult to find housing.
When Kryvyi Rih first came under shelling, Afansieva said she barricaded her bedroom and put a wardrobe against the window, and blocked it with books and a blanket.
In early March, she took her two children and two backpacks and along with a friend and thousands of other refugees, boarded a train to Lviv, leaving her husband and her entire life behind.
In Poland, thanks to a Facebook group for refugees, she found a free apartment in Poznan.
Her children started school soon after, but she has struggled to find jobs, and she says nothing that compares with her well-paying position at a pharmaceutical company in Ukraine.
She had interviewed for a promotion to a regional sales representative just before Fed. 24 but didn't hear back before the war started, and now makes a living as a cleaner in Poznan, earning just over 100 euros ($99) a month.
Most of the time, she says she is worried about her husband who stayed back.
"I want to go home … If only I was told that we can safely return, I would leave on foot now," she said, her voice breaking.
(Production Kuba Stezycki, Hedy Beloucif) - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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