in Lviv, on the last train arriving from Kramatorsk, the refugees fear “the worst battle of the century”

They are four, a little lost in the crowd of refugees who populate the Lviv station that day, in western Ukraine. Three women and a young girl, four generations that one would swear from the same family as they seem so united. “No, not at all, we met on the train”, they say. And not just any train. The one from which they have just descended took two days instead of one to take them away from the fighting. It passed just before the bombardment by the Russians of the railway line, then of the Kramatorsk station, which killed at least 52 people according to an initial assessment. This station had become the station of exodus for Ukrainians from Donbass.

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Tetiana fled with her ten-year-old daughter. “We left our city of Kramatorsk yesterday on the last train. And it was on this train that we learned that the station had been bombed. My husband is still there. He saw the bombs fall and he m said it was a massacre.” Tetiana and her traveling companion, Anna, 76, know they were very lucky.

They are also aware that their region of Donbass is about to experience terrible days in the face of the determination displayed by the Russians to conquer it completely. “I am very worried for my relatives who remained there, testifies Anna. They say there will be fighting in our town, that it will be bombarded. It’s scary. In the Donbass, it will be the worst battle of the century.”

“It’s going to be as terrible as the Battle of Kursk in World War II.”

Anna, 76 years old

at franceinfo

On the forecourt of Lviv station, the four women are looking for a bus to take them even further, to Poland. They who did not know each other two days ago are now linked by this last train from Kramatorsk. “We stay together, of course, promises Tetiana. We stay together until the Ukrainian victory and then we will all go home.”