Anna has only one piece of luggage and all her tears to carry. She leaves Irpin, a stone’s throw from Kiev, the Ukrainian capital which is preparing for an assault by Russian forces, where she had bought an apartment with her fiancé. They leave behind the city in which they were to build their future.
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“We wanted to leave earlier, but we couldn’t get to the station. When we tried to go there, their bombs started falling. We took the car. We must have left her on the other side of the bridge. We ended up on foot to come here. Now, we are trying to reach Kiev station.“, she slips between two sobs.
Evacuees from Irpin arrive on foot on a road that ends abruptly above a river: the bridge has been destroyed. On each side of the shore, the Russian and Ukrainian armies respond to each other in a din of war to which the inhabitants are already accustomed.
One of them says: “Do you see that man’s building? It has just been bombed. They shoot in all directions. A piece of a rocket went through my neighbor’s apartment on the third floor. Children have died in this apartment. I don’t even know where to go. We’re evacuated, but I don’t even know where we’re going…“
And then suddenly, everything accelerates: people start running because a van has just arrived. On board this improvised bus, everyone rushes to have a little space for themselves and the rare luggage they are carrying. “In the early days of the war, my house was bombed. With my family, we had to find shelter. With my daughter, we decided to leave. They bomb constantly. We’re trying to save our lives, far from here.“, loose a woman, who could not get into the vehicle.
On this road, in the middle of the forest, swept by an icy wind, only evacuation vans and ambulances circulate. The irpin refugees continue to arrive in what is believed to be an admirable calm, but which, in reality, is a state of shock, which leaves them unresponsive.