David Culot looked at the map, and here is his plan: “if things go wrong with the Russians”, he will leave Kharkiv (Ukraine) by car, “but avoiding the capital”, Kyiv. With his wife and their three children aged 1, 4 and 7, they will spend “more from the south”, will cross the Dnieper, the river which acts as a natural border, before “go warm to the West”. But it’s all in the “if”.
When franceinfo meets them at their home, Wednesday February 2, the suitcases are still stored on the shelves. “We are not going to hit the road tonight on the sly”, would like to reassure the French expatriate. Besides, no one has yet woken up with a start in the middle of the night, “lost in the middle of the boxes”. But the atmosphere is not quite serene. “There is still this thing above you”, tries to explain the 51-year-old father while swallowing his coffee. “You can’t pretend that nothing is happening when dozens of Russian soldiers are massed close to your home”.
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The Russian border? She’s right in front, straight ahead, side kitchen, 25 kilometers away. “In case”, David Culot has therefore added a few lines to his shopping list. At the supermarket, he stopped by the canning department to stock up on cans of beans and peas. He also bought rice and five or six extra cartons of milk. He stocked up on water and set aside 40 liters of diesel to run the generator. Always “in case”. For example “if there is a seat and we can no longer go outside”. “A little like an earthquake, you get the idea?”
Closing the cupboard, he asks himself: “Maybe it’s too much, maybe it won’t help. But it’s reassuring.” Lui and his family have already experienced this “war atmosphere”. In 2014, when the military conflict between Ukraine and Russia started, it was first in Kharkiv that pro-Moscow activists planted a Russian flag on the roof of the regional administration and proclaimed a separatist republic. “People were hitting each other, shooting each other in the middle of the city, he remembers. The shootings were every day. I saw the Ukrainian planes passing over the company. I still have videos in my phone, do you want to see?”
“The day our first child was born, I left the clinic and what did I find? A convoy of tanks heading towards Donbass. It was scary.”
David Culotat franceinfo
Some time ago, Emile, the eldest, came to find his father: “Dad, what is war?” he asked her. “How do we answer this question? I got confused to explain that it was a story of people who didn’t like other people and that therefore they fought.” “Our children don’t know that it can still happen again here, and it’s better like that”, intervenes Anna, the mother, of Ukrainian origin. We protect them from everything that is said, from everything that happens.”
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On the WhatsApp group of French nationals in which the Culot family appears, the tensions with the Russian neighbor are not “not a topic more than that.” “Obviously we speaks”, recognizes the man who settled down fifteen years ago in this large industrial city in northeastern Ukraine. “We say to ourselves that we will make a convoy if we have to leave, that it will be more ‘safe’. But there is no wind of panic. He there are people who are wondering about the sequel. But on try to live normally, without thinking too much about it.”
It’s not always easy. “When I read Twitter, I have the impression that the attack is for tomorrow, that the soldiers are already there, and there I panic”, observes David Culot, shaking his hands. Just the other day, he came across a podcast in English about different military strategies. “It was super interesting. Well, at the beginning. But I couldn’t finish…” At work too, Russian President Vladimir Putin and his men in fatigues are never far from the coffee machine. “Some clients tell me: ‘Listen, we really want to do business with you. But if you don’t mind, go wait a bit for things to calm down before signing something'”, says the one who is at the head of two IT companies.
So the Culots, like the 1.4 million inhabitants of Kharkiv, have no choice but to“wait”, “be patient”, “think about something else” : “You organize your evenings as if nothing had happened, you do your sport, you go to the cinema, and you’re trying to forget what’s happening 20 minutes from here”. And then anyway, “to leave, but to leave where?, Anna wonders. My family, they are here, they live next door. I don’t see myself abandoning them”. “Casing nothing, Kharkiv is one of the places where I spent the most time since I was born,” pursues her husband. There would be Brest, where David Culot’s sister lives. “But do we want to come back to France? I don’t know… We built everything here. Deep down, I tell myself that if we leave, it will be final. We won’t be coming back. ”