Posted on 03/08/2022 8:54:08 AM PST by UMCRevMom@aol.com
Exhausted passengers rush into the train car after waiting for hours at Kyiv’s central railway station on March 1, 2022. (Asami Terajima
National Kyiv train station mayhem as thousands rush to flee March 7, 2022 11:57 pm by Asami Terajima Exhausted passengers rush into the train car after waiting for hours at Kyiv’s central railway station on March 1, 2022. (Asami Terajima)
Editor’s Note: Ukrainians mentioned in this story were reluctant to have their full names published in the press due to security risks brought by the Russian invasion.
Thousands of people spend hours at Kyiv’s central railway station, each day, hanging onto a slim hope of boarding a train to flee the capital, frequently struck by Russian missiles.
There are no tickets out of Kyiv left, but it makes no difference – the tickets have become useless pieces of paper, as all trains are now evacuation trains, first come first served. Everyone, with or without tickets, has to wrestle their way to the platform, where women, children and the elderly beg the conductors to let them board the overcrowded trains.
“I never thought that I would wake up and my morning would start with a message to tell my family that ‘mom, dad, I am still alive,’” Anna, 31, told the Kyiv Independent on March 1.
Anna, who asked for her surname not to be mentioned, sat on the stairs at the central railway station in Kyiv, holding a big white paper bag close to her. Inside the bag was a small animal carrier with her pet rat.
Though Anna only moved to the capital from her hometown in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast three years ago for a job at a foreign company, she said she had immediately felt a close connection to Kyiv. She first liked it because Kyiv was “big and bright,” but it eventually became something more for her. She says she now was attached to the city and calls it her hometown.
Even when Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, striking several of Kyiv’s neighborhoods with missiles, and turning once-prosperous suburbs into ashes, Anna didn’t immediately leave.
“I wanted to stay in Kyiv until the end,” she said. “I love this city. Even now it’s difficult for me to leave.”
But a week after the attack on Kyiv began, Anna found herself at the overcrowded station in a desperate attempt to flee.
“We are scared,” she said. “It’s really scary.”
BROKEN LIVES
Some are past the fear stage.
Among those waiting for the train was Tetiana, a 30-year-old Ukrainian woman from Odesa.
“There is no fear inside me anymore,” Tetiana told the Kyiv Independent.
“I’m already in the state of mind where I accept fate and understand that whatever happens, happens,” she said as she teared up. “I want freedom for Ukraine with a peaceful sky and for people to smile. I want things to go back as they were before.”
Another Ukrainian waiting at the station, Oleksandr, 30, said he spent the whole day waiting for his train to come. He told the Kyiv Independent that his train to Dnipro had been canceled or rerouted twice and he’s not sure when the next one would come. Dnipro, some 500 kilometers south of Kyiv, has not yet been targeted by the Russian troops.
Oleksandr, who works in a car shop, was calm. But he admitted that fear got to him when he heard a very loud explosion near his apartment in Kyiv.
Oleksandr’s mother, who lives in Dnipro, had been calling him every day, asking him to come back to his hometown where everything was calmer. The night before he headed to the station, he heard several explosions from his apartment and made the decision to leave Kyiv the next morning.
“War is scary,” he said. “I want peace.”
A WAY OUT
As soon as the first train arrived at the platform, a crowd of exhausted passengers rushed to the open door.
Losing patience, passengers began pushing each other to be the first to board the train. Irritated, those evacuating tried to squeeze through, while unintentionally hitting each other with backpacks and luggage.
There were no longer tickets when entering trains, as people stormed into the compartments as soon as the door slid open.
Trains to Lviv, a major urban center 500 kilometers west of Kyiv, were especially packed.
The train compartments soon flooded with evacuees who wanted to flee Kyiv as soon as possible. Some left behind their belongings, such as a baby stroller, when hopping onto the train, taking whatever they could to secure themselves a ride to seemingly any western destination.
National Kyiv train station mayhem as thousands rush to flee March 7, 2022 11:57 pm by Asami Terajima Exhausted passengers rush into the train car after waiting for hours at Kyiv’s central railway station on March 1, 2022. (Asami Terajima)
Editor’s Note: Ukrainians mentioned in this story were reluctant to have their full names published in the press due to security risks brought by the Russian invasion.
Thousands of people spend hours at Kyiv’s central railway station, each day, hanging onto a slim hope of boarding a train to flee the capital, frequently struck by Russian missiles.
There are no tickets out of Kyiv left, but it makes no difference – the tickets have become useless pieces of paper, as all trains are now evacuation trains, first come first served. Everyone, with or without tickets, has to wrestle their way to the platform, where women, children and the elderly beg the conductors to let them board the overcrowded trains.
“I never thought that I would wake up and my morning would start with a message to tell my family that ‘mom, dad, I am still alive,’” Anna, 31, told the Kyiv Independent on March 1.
Anna, who asked for her surname not to be mentioned, sat on the stairs at the central railway station in Kyiv, holding a big white paper bag close to her. Inside the bag was a small animal carrier with her pet rat.
Though Anna only moved to the capital from her hometown in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast three years ago for a job at a foreign company, she said she had immediately felt a close connection to Kyiv. She first liked it because Kyiv was “big and bright,” but it eventually became something more for her. She says she now was attached to the city and calls it her hometown.
Even when Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, striking several of Kyiv’s neighborhoods with missiles, and turning once-prosperous suburbs into ashes, Anna didn’t immediately leave.
“I wanted to stay in Kyiv until the end,” she said. “I love this city. Even now it’s difficult for me to leave.”
But a week after the attack on Kyiv began, Anna found herself at the overcrowded station in a desperate attempt to flee.
“We are scared,” she said. “It’s really scary.” Thousands of Ukrainians spend hours every day at Kyiv’s central railway station, hoping to flee the capital hit by Russian missile strikes. (Asami Terajima)
Broken lives
Some are past the fear stage.
Among those waiting for the train was Tetiana, a 30-year-old Ukrainian woman from Odesa.
“There is no fear inside me anymore,” Tetiana told the Kyiv Independent.
“I’m already in the state of mind where I accept fate and understand that whatever happens, happens,” she said as she teared up. “I want freedom for Ukraine with a peaceful sky and for people to smile. I want things to go back as they were before.”
Another Ukrainian waiting at the station, Oleksandr, 30, said he spent the whole day waiting for his train to come. He told the Kyiv Independent that his train to Dnipro had been canceled or rerouted twice and he’s not sure when the next one would come. Dnipro, some 500 kilometers south of Kyiv, has not yet been targeted by the Russian troops.
Oleksandr, who works in a car shop, was calm. But he admitted that fear got to him when he heard a very loud explosion near his apartment in Kyiv.
Oleksandr’s mother, who lives in Dnipro, had been calling him every day, asking him to come back to his hometown where everything was calmer. The night before he headed to the station, he heard several explosions from his apartment and made the decision to leave Kyiv the next morning.
“War is scary,” he said. “I want peace.”
A way out
As soon as the first train arrived at the platform, a crowd of exhausted passengers rushed to the open door.
Losing patience, passengers began pushing each other to be the first to board the train. Irritated, those evacuating tried to squeeze through, while unintentionally hitting each other with backpacks and luggage.
There were no longer tickets when entering trains, as people stormed into the compartments as soon as the door slid open.
Trains to Lviv, a major urban center 500 kilometers west of Kyiv, were especially packed.
The train compartments soon flooded with evacuees who wanted to flee Kyiv as soon as possible. Some left behind their belongings, such as a baby stroller, when hopping onto the train, taking whatever they could to secure themselves a ride to seemingly any western destination.
As passengers spilled into hallways and there was no longer any space left to fit anyone else in, the train crew stood on the doorway to block the path.
“There is no more space!” the train attendant told those still standing on the platform.
Though many left with despair, dreading the long wait for the next train going to their destination, a few stayed, trying to negotiate with the crew.
“My wife is sick,” a man seemingly in his 50s told the lady standing firmly at the door. Another woman came to the door, saying, “My child is on the train. Please, let me in.”
The conductor handpicked who gets in and who doesn’t. She allowed a woman with a young boy to enter the train but refused many others, including all men who came by later.
“How old are you?” she asked each Ukrainian man after observing that they weren’t with a child.
No single man was allowed to board. Under martial law, men from 18 to 55 years old aren’t allowed to leave Kyiv.
“You have to stay here and defend the country,” the conductor responded again and again.
Minutes later, she closed the door. People remained on the platform, standing in silence, waiting for the next train.
Thank you for posting this.
Jack London wrote of a similar issue in “The Road”. The head of a gypsy tribe whipped a kid and the young woman who begged him to stop. London observed-that’s all. It was not his business.
FOXNEWS REPORTED
Russians are bombing green civilian evacuation routes again
I feel I read that two, maybe three, times.
If Ukraine is doing so well against Russia, why can’t it protect its citizens?
Yes. They keep telling me that Ukraine is winning. Blowing the Russian air force out of the sky. Knocking out dozens of Russian tanks. So many Russian soldiers surrendering and crying for their mothers.
If Ukraine is winning, why are they doing so badly?
I’m not falling for the propaganda.
Note too that trains are still running, lights are still on, cell phones still working.
Despite all the MSM propaganda, This is not USA style "shock and awe" or carpet-bombing. Far from it.
We won’t know the truth of what’s happened for months or years. The propaganda is in full swing.
How would Fox know? From the Ukrainians? They lied about cities being carpet bombed. The Ghost of Kyiv. The 13 defiant soldiers on the island. At this point I believe nothing I see on any News channel.
Hmmm. I guess the Ukraine War hasn’t changed much with me. I never believed them before.
Ukraine gave up their nulcear stockpile:
OSCE conference in Budapest, Hungary on 5 December 1994
The Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances refers to three identical political agreements signed at the OSCE conference in Budapest, Hungary on 5 December 1994, providing security assurances by its signatories relating to Belarus’s, Kazakhstan’s and Ukraine’s accession to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. The memorandum was originally signed by three nuclear powers, the RUSSIAN FEDERATION, the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, and the UNITED KINGDOM. CHINA and FRANCE gave somewhat weaker individual assurances in separate documents.
The memorandum included SECURITY ASSURANCES against threats or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan.
As a result, between 1994 and 1996, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine GAVE UP their nuclear weapons. Before that, Ukraine had the world’s THIRD largest nuclear weapons stockpile.
HOWEVER, On 16 March, Russia annexed Crimea. Ukraine vigorously protested the action as a violation of Article 1 of the Budapest Memorandum.
Freedom of choice to believe what you will. The Ukrainian army continues to fight.
Ukrainians fleeing to Poland face long journey, frigid weather https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/ukrainians-fleeing-to-poland-face-long-journey-frigid-weather/ar-AAUK9Uc "CBS Mornings" co-host Tony Dokoupil visited the Polish village of Medyka, one of the busiest border crossings for Ukrainian refugees, and met dozens of families — many with young children — who have already made the journey. Some were so overcome they couldn't even talk about the situation." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NsCuyiCDD0s
What’s happening to Ukraine is terrible. Z should make a deal now so they can live to fight another day, imo.
I don’t see a path to victory for Ukraine here, I see a path to more death, destruction and hardship.
It’s easy to tell them to keep fighting from our safe homes.
I’ve been to this train station in Kiev many times. I always had a blast taking the train from Kiev to Luhansk and back. It was often an overnight trip and there was no guarantee you’d share a four-man sleeping berthing with your traveling companions. You might get put in one with people you didn’t know but once the beer started flowing, it didn’t matter.
Ever see the movie Casablanca? Remember the last train out of Paris before the Nazis marched in? Have we forgotten? This is the face of war—Now in real time. Ugly and mean. We have been spared this (save for the Third World).
Maia Mikhaluk
https://www.facebook.com/maia.mikhaluk
“Maia Mikhaluk
·
Day 13 of a Russian invasion.
“We thank God for another day of life! Last night for the first day since war started we slept all night in our beds. Air raid warning was turned off for us at 9:30pm after two Russian bomber planes were shot down near Kyiv. But it’s just us who had a quiet night.
We are reading that the suburbs of Kyiv (and a number of other cities) were still mercilessly bombed, our defenders heroically keep holding Russian troops in the suburbs from entering the city. I know our restful sleep came today at the cost of many lives.
8th of March is an International Women’s day – a holiday religiously celebrated in Soviet times. When we started de-Communization in Ukraine we tried to “forget” this holiday, but traditions die hard. Many people refused to discard it because it was like a celebration of women (didn’t seem political).
If men gave flowers to their women once a year, it would be on Women’s day. Our family doesn’t celebrate it now, but my father stubbornly calls me and Sasha on Women’s day to greet us with this holiday. He used to bring flowers and chocolates. But this year he even came 3 days ago and gave me and Sasha money, and to our surprised question, why, he said, “Happy Women’s Day”. We further protested that it was only the 5th of March, to which he responded that with Russian bombings he didn’t know if he could make it to the 8th, so he was doing it ahead of time!
I continue to be not a fan of International Women’s Day even if I now know that it was not the Soviets who created it – though in Soviet times we were taught that version of history. But I do want to celebrate women, especially women of Ukraine, and especially the ones who took on arms to protect our country in the time of Russian aggression.
Our women want to grow flowers, give birth to babies, raise kids, develop their businesses, sing, create art, travel, love, but today many choose to put that aside for a while to fight Russian aggressors so that later they can live their lives in a free country.
My prayers are for women-defenders, and for women who are covering their kids’ ears during air raids, who struggle for words to explain to their children what is happening, for women who are on the road fleeing the war, leaving behind their homes destroyed by Russian barbarians, for women who say goodbye to their husbands as they cross the borders to safety while their men take arms on defense lines, my prayers are for women who are pregnant, may God give them peace and assurance that they are bringing new life into the world that will soon become a better place (after Russians are defeated and Russia chokes on economic sanctions), I pray for our little girls to grow strong!
We shall overcome!
I also thought today about Russian soldiers. Are they thinking about their mothers, sisters, daughters today as they shoot at our women and children?”
VIDEO
https://www.facebook.com/alex.zaiarniy/videos/5181344838574607
I congratulate all women on Spring, women’s day! I wish you blessings from the Lord Jesus Christ! Thank God for being there! Thank God for my mother Galina Duminika Zayarnaya! I wish you good health! And draw closer to God in prayer and in his word! Friends congratulate your mothers on this day, call and say kind and affectionate words! If they are no longer on this earth, just remember Your Mother!
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