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War in Ukraine - Fight or Flight?

March 25, 2022

Over a million civilians have fled west since Russia launched its military invasion of Ukraine. But many are choosing to remain and defend their country.

https://p.dw.com/p/492TP
Ukraine Krieg mit Russland Mariupol
Image: Maximilian Clarke/ZUMA PRESS/picture alliance
Nahaufnahme | Krieg in der Ukraine - Fliehen oder bleiben?
Image: Kobalt

The port city of Mariupol in eastern Ukraine is strategically important to Russian forces. And pastor Gennadiy Mokhnenko founded a children’s home here more than 20 years ago. Four thousand children have grown up here and the pastor and his wife have even adopted 35 of them. Fear of attacks by pro-Russian separatists and even outright war with Russia has overshadowed daily life since 2014.

On February 24, Mokhnenko’s worst fears were realized. After friends in the military warned him of the impending invasion, Mokhnenko managed to get some 200 women and children in his care out of the city in under an hour. The pastor himself stayed in Mariupol to help to those who remained. 

Nahaufnahme | Krieg in der Ukraine - Fliehen oder bleiben?
Image: Kobalt

Neighboring Poland, meanwhile, took in around half a million Ukrainians in the first two weeks of fighting alone. In the border town of Przemyśl, volunteers such as Oksana Romaniec are finding homes for refugees - mainly women and children - and making sure they are looked after.

Oksana was born in Poland, but her parents and her partner Mykoła are Ukrainian. The couple has turned his parents’ home into an emergency shelter for refugees. Hundreds oarrive here by train and bus every day. Women and children stay, while the men return home to join the fight against Russia. 

In Berlin, 33-year-old Andriy Ilin from Ukraine is organizing demonstrations for peace, helping newly arrived refugees get their bearings and setting up a donation center. Seven years ago, he co-founded a small Ukrainian Orthodox community in the German capital. With Ukraine now under attack, the community has become a haven for many Ukrainians with its numbers swelling rapidly.

 

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