It’s a train full of women, with a few children. Not a single man on board. Even the controllers are all controllers. They distribute the tea in the compartments. On her bunk, Natalya laughs all the time. She is a professional cyclist and has just returned from ten weeks of cycling in Portugal. And, on the bench below, another Natalya returns from a medical congress in Italy. It’s almost routine, except for a few details like the plastic on the windows of the train to protect passengers in the event of an explosion.
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Despite the latest bombardments on kyiv, despite the water cuts, hundreds of Ukrainian families decide to return to the country and take the railways every day, especially between southern Poland and kyiv. Even the freezing winter that awaits them does not frighten the passengers. “If we don’t have electricity, Ukrainians will have more babies!rejoices one of them with a big smile. There will be more of us soon!”
The border has now passed. No more Poland, here Ukraine and the war is already catching up with the compartment. Aliona, the neighbor of the two Natalyas, has become a cook in Krakow. If she returns to the country, it is to bury her little brother, who died in combat near Kherson two days ago. His name was Ivan, he had just turned 30. “The morning of his death, I had him on the phone. Three hours later, he was killed by a minebreathes the young woman. He told me that Ukraine would not win this war.” Natalya, the cyclist, is surprised. This is not the majority discourse here. “But we don’t have enough weapons, not enough means against Russia”she acknowledges.
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From her bag, Aliona pulls out a framed photo of Ivan: “I’m heartbroken. He was my brother, my friend. He was my hero.” Her one-night neighbor, on the bench, comforts her and corrects her: “No, he was our hero to all.”
War in Ukraine: in a night train to kyiv, Ukrainians return home – report by Agathe Mahuet
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