‘Half my heart I left behind’: Ukraine’s refugees share their harrowing stories
Seemingly overnight, they lost their homes and had their families broken apart. Seeking safety in Poland, thousands of refugees now confront what comes next.
UKRAINE’S REFUGEES SHARE THEIR HARROWING STORIES
Waking to explosions. The scramble to find a passport. A harrowing train ride sheathed in darkness to evade Russian forces. Hope for a “warm corner” to shelter in. Each refugee’s story is filled with grief and a striking communality—a shared distress perhaps inescapable when more than a million people are forced to flee their homes and face harsh realities at eastern European borders over the span of a few days.
One refugee, snarled for two of those days in a quiet panic of cars inching toward the Polish border city of Przemyśl, was Irina Lopuga. She and her husband had ample time to talk, no longer about dreams to buy their own home or tour Egypt but about survival. “We talked about the whole world turning upside down.”
Once they reached the border, it was time to part. Ukrainian men ages 18 to 60 have been ordered to stay home and aid the resistance, flanked by women picking up weapons for the first time and small armies of civilians cooking up dumplings—and Molotov cocktails. Her husband would help his church prepare for evacuees from Kyiv. Just before he left, she says, “he turned around and burst into tears.”
Then she, the children, their dog—all ran.
They’re now a small part of one of the largest waves of refugees in decades trying to find their own warm corner in a Europe outraged and on edge. Fearful for their own security, Europeans have been welcoming of the individuals making up this exhausted exodus, some of them international visitors to Ukraine, some of them survivors of years-long conflicts with Russian-backed separatists in the east, and most of them broken families with, so far, unbroken spirits.
THE DECISION
“ It’s very hard to have your husband stay home. You have to choose. Save the kids or stay with him.” ”
Refugees from Ukraine try to find some normality in their tent at the reception point for refugees in Medyka, Poland, as they wait to continue their passage to other destinations in Europe.
THE ESCAPE
“ There were a million people, the station was so crowded we couldn’t move. It was a great horror. Tears like hail.” ”
Valentyna Turchyn stands for a portrait with her mother (also named Valentyna Turchyn) and her three daughters: Maya, five, in a pink coat, Tanya, seven, and Galyna, 16. All are bundled against the cold at a shelter in Poland after fleeing from their home city of Cherkasy, Ukraine.
Ludmyla Kuchebko, 72, from Zhytomyr has left the air-raid sirens behind but worries for her son in Kyiv. Looking to God to “save not only my son, but Ukraine,” she prays for every passenger on every train. “Today we pray not only for Ukraine—we pray for Russia, for our brothers and sisters there.”
A makeshift bed lies outdoors at a refugee reception center near the Medyka crossing between the Ukrainian and Polish borders, on the outskirts of Przemyśl, Poland.
THE WAR
“ It was so scary when the first bombs exploded.” ”
A pile of footwear collected by volunteers is ready for distribution to refugees from Ukraine entering Poland near Przemyśl.
THE LOSS
“ We were born in Ukraine and we love our motherland. It’s a beautiful country. God gave it everything: forests, fields … my precious fields.” ”
Iryna Butenko, 33, and daughter Kateryna Falchenko, eight, fled Kharkiv in a panic. When a train finally appeared, says Iryna, “we ran while they were shooting from behind.” She does not want to go back, ever. Katya feels safe now: “No one is shooting or threatening us. My mom is always near me.”
Iryna Kuzmenko, 41, and her daughter, Arianda Shchepina, 11, from the city of Zaporizhzhia, have a quiet moment together outside the Juliusza Slowackiego High School in Przemyśl, Poland, where refugees have sought shelter and support.
An exhausted refugee steals a moment of rest in Medyka, Poland, near the border with Ukraine where some 100,000 refugees have already crossed.
THE FUTURE
“ We don’t need much. A warm corner is enough.” ”
Iryna Novikova, 42, left Kyiv with her daughter on a moment’s notice—without changing clothes, brushing her teeth, or showering. “In such a moment you need none of that. I don’t know how I ran; my legs just carried me.” Her daughter had told her the attack was coming, but “I just couldn’t believe it.”
Amoakohene Ababio Williams, 26, originally from Ghana, says he was separated from his Ukrainian wife, Sattennik Airapetryan, 27, and their one-year-old son, Kyle Richard, along with other Black men, just before reaching the Polish border after fleeing Odesa. “I was thinking, that’s all. Maybe I will not see her again.” He made it.
Anastasia Taylor-Lind is a National Geographic photographer, a TED fellow, and a 2016 Harvard Nieman fellow. She covers issues relating to women, population, and war.
Alice Aedy is a documentary photographer and filmmaker whose work focuses on social justice issues including forced migration, climate justice, and women’s stories.
Davide Monteleone is a photographer, visual artist, and National Geographic Explorer with a particular interest in post-Soviet countries. The National Geographic Society, committed to illuminating and protecting the wonder of our world, has funded Monteleone’s work. See more on his website.
Petro Halaburda, a Ukrainian film production student based in Warsaw, Poland, provided field assistance and translation.
