Published
Video duration:
3 mins
Since the start of the war, many Ukrainians have joined the front. Others made a radically different choice. They decided to leave their country to avoid fighting.
Defending the country and fighting the Russians is what these men who are sent to the front do. But other Ukrainians have made a contrary choice, like Bogdan. He now lives in Warsaw (Poland), where he found work as a construction worker. He fled Ukraine just before he reached the age of majority, because since the start of the war, Ukrainians aged 18 to 60 have not been allowed to leave the territory without special permission. So he left before being summoned by the army. “I made the decision to go into exile a few days before my 18th birthday so that they would let me cross the Polish border. I did it because if something happens to my father who is a soldier, he will no longer stay than me to help my mother and my sisters financially”explains the young man.
“I am not a weak person”
And when people call him a coward, he defends himself. “I am not a weak person, neither physically nor mentally. But if I return to Ukraine, they will send me somewhere, in a corner where it gets hot, but I don’t know how to fight”, specifies Bogdan. To avoid war, Ivan also chose Warsaw as his place of refuge. He is 38 years old and was a reserve officer in Ukraine, he is now a taxi driver. He does not regret having left his country with his family, just in time.