War in Ukraine | Safe from bombs for two months in the Kharkiv metro

(Kharkiv) As of February 24, Elena Ivanovna fled the war. For almost two months, with her mother and three children, she has been sheltering from bombs in the Kharkiv metro, in eastern Ukraine.

A “scary, difficult life, but we wait, we hope”, she says, praying for the end of the war and the departure of the soldiers from Moscow.

On the night of the Russian invasion, his family slept peacefully in their Ukrainian village of Lyptsi, just 10 km from the border with Russia.

“We woke up at 4:30 a.m. […], even the children woke up immediately. They realized it was war,” she told AFP.

The violent Russian steamroller descends on Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest city, about 20 km further south.

“It didn’t sound like thunder. Everything was on fire through the window, our house was shaking,” she testifies.

Elena, her husband and their children aged 8, 10 and 17, get dressed quickly, take some clothes, important documents, and run to shelter in the basement of their house.

“After 15 minutes it got quieter. We ran to our car and drove towards Kharkiv, at 170 km/h, as fast as we could”.

“During the journey, my husband said ‘look around you for the missiles’, because it was falling everywhere, with sounds of bombardments”, recalls this kindergarten teacher, aged about forty.

Arrived in Kharkiv, they join Elena’s mother who lives there.

But the city, which has nearly 1.5 million inhabitants, also finds itself under the bombs. As the Russians try to capture it, the resistance of the Ukrainian army pushes them back in fierce fighting.

Again, the family takes refuge in a cellar. They stay there for six days.

“We thought that here (in Kharkiv) we would find salvation, but this has become the front line. Helicopters and planes bombarded the city. So we decided to come to the metro, like hundreds of residents, to protect ourselves from Russian strikes.

700 people

Two months later, around 700 people are still living in several Kharkiv metro stations.

Because if the city does not undergo massive bombardments, it is targeted every day by rockets. Strikes, random, spaced out, at any time of day or night, sometimes deadly, and which particularly target residential areas in the north and northeast, near the front line.

In the metro, “the first week, people slept on top of each other, there was no humanitarian aid, no one understood what was happening”, explains Ioulia, one of the many volunteers who mobilized to help the displaced.

This Friday morning, the eve of Easter, volunteers organize a distribution of “paska”, a small traditional brioche, coated with icing sugar and colored sprinkles.

On the long platform of the station, each family, each refugee recreated a semblance of intimacy despite the absence of physical separation.

Mattresses, blankets, beds, tables, chairs, everything is tidy. Volunteers clean the walkways regularly and the electricity works.

Everyone takes care of themselves as they can, calmly. We read, we sleep, we type on our phone, we chat, we eat, we walk in the aisle, we also go outside for some.

On a mattress, a daughter of Elena has just received a large princess castle and is mounting each of the rooms, very concentrated.

“We have humanitarian aid. Volunteers bring us food three times a day, even hot meals, sweets for the children […]gifts, toys, pencils,” explains the girl’s mother.

For the past month, the children have even been able to study, volunteers give face-to-face lessons, or online, with videos.

Activities are also organized for all ages: theatre, concerts, puppets, conferences, physical exercises…

For the youngest, “there was an animal show, painting, games, so that our children could feel better mentally and physically,” says Elena.

None is psychologically unscathed: “now, when they hear (rockets), they wake up, they tremble and ask for medicine,” she says.

For her, “victory will be when all the Russian soldiers leave (from Ukraine), when we no longer hear the missile strikes, when we no longer see any rockets”.