DUBAI/JEDDAH: The whole world woke up on Thursday morning to the news of Russia’s massive attack on neighboring Ukraine. This was the beginning of another conflict, followed by destruction, suffering, displacement and death.
In a televised address on February 21, Russian President Vladimir Putin justified the attack as a defense of the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics in eastern Ukraine. He said leaders of the two separatist regions had sought military help from Moscow against Kiev after Putin recognized their independence that day.
For Ukrainians working in Arab countries, distance has offered protection from the dangers of living in a war zone, but it has done little to ease their worries while their families and friends are thousands of miles away.
Mia, a 26-year-old Ukrainian who moved from Kiev to Lebanon’s Jounih in 2018, doesn’t need to scroll through her smartphone to get updates from her country. She has been receiving constant text messages and phone calls from her loved ones who are now caught in the cities of fire.
“I’m texting my parents and friends at all hours of the night to make sure they’re getting it. I get so worried when a text takes time to get delivered because I don’t know right away. The worst I start to think is that my parents and my younger brother may have been killed,” Mia, who gave only her maiden name, told Arab News.
“My parents and my brother, who is 12 years old, are living in an underground bomb shelter. He has never hurt anyone in his life. We don’t deserve it,” she added
Still, Mia feels the war has brought the best in Ukrainians back home. “Today, I am proud to be Ukrainian. I am proud of my family, my people and my President.” “May we see the light at the end of the tunnel.”
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Like Mia, late life is full of tension, fear and anxiety for Kuwait-based Lebanese Ukrainian Alisa Alchimali, whose family and friends are now scattered in Kiev. They have left their homes and belongings as they take refuge from falling shells and mortars, he told Arab News. Some of them have fled to rural areas in search of safety.
Alchimali, who has now lived and worked in the Gulf state for more than four years, said her mother is safe in Beirut, but the rest of her extended family is now internally displaced in Ukraine. She said she and her mother worry about their loved ones throughout the day as they listen to missiles being fired into populated areas of Kiev and other major Ukrainian cities.
Members of the border guard and Slovak troops help a Ukrainian woman after crossing the border in Vysne Nemeke, eastern Slovakia on February 26, 2022. (Photo by Peter Lazar/AFP)
“Everyone I know has fled their homes to live near the border or to look for bomb shelters in their city,” he told Arab News.
“My godmother’s family left their home in broad daylight hoping to reach a town near the (Polish) border. But as they were still in the middle of the journey, bombs began to fall, so they were forced to take refuge in a nearby town and sleep on a stranger’s couch. ,
A Ukrainian family in tears at the train station in Przemysl as thousands of Ukrainians enter Poland fleeing Russian invaders on February 25, 2022. (Getty Images)
Alchimali said: “It’s tense because you don’t know what’s going to happen or where they’re going to hit next. It looks like wherever people are going, enemy forces are targeting that place. Here Even rural areas that would not be considered eligible to target are also vulnerable.”
Surrounded by war news from social media feeds, Alchimali has been forced to add a new task to her routine: checking in on family members and friends in the morning, and again in the evening. She said she hears stories about traffic-clogged streets, low food provisions, empty supermarket shelves, and miles-long queues for fuel.
“People are in a real panic mode,” she told Arab News, adding that every time she sees the message it comes as a huge relief: “We’re fine. We’re hopeful.”
Innumbers
150,000 Ukrainians have fled the country since the start of the Russian offensive on February 24.
87 total border crossings between Ukraine, Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, Romania and Moldova.
For 29-year-old Irina, who lives in Dubai, the war back home has forced her to constantly watch the news about her extended family. Originally from central Ukraine, her family is spread across cities in the east and west of the country.
She said that her mother is in Kuzmintsi, a small village in the south-west of the capital near the Moldovan border, while her father is in Kiev. An aunt and uncle live in Vasilkiv, a small province just outside Kiev that was hit by a recent bombing.
“My family had to be transferred to a bomb shelter in Metro Sportu in Kiev. It is quite unusual for Ukrainians to have someone’s family in different cities across the country. I hoped that would never happen,” said Irina, who only He also gave his first name.
A man hugs a girl as Ukrainians fleeing Russian invaders in Poland across the Korzowa-Krakowets border on February 26, 2022. (Jenek Skrzynski/AFP)
“I knew the Russians were sending their troops to our borders, but we all thought they were trying to intimidate us as they had done before. I read the news of the ambassadors being evacuated, but still I suspected
“I didn’t think my hometown would be attacked at 5 a.m. without any notice, we were hoping the invaders would be stopped by public outcry and sanctions. But now it looks like they’re going to do anything without any repercussions.” can bomb, attack and attack the country.”
Irina said her uncle in Poland has heeded President Volodymyr Zelensky’s appeal to return Ukrainians abroad and take up arms to defend the country.
Ukrainian soldiers are seen at the site of a battle with a Russian raiding group in Kiev on the morning of February 26, 2022. (Sergei Supinsky/AFP)
“We always think that war may never come to us, but look at Syria, Bosnia and now Ukraine,” she told Arab News. “It’s only a matter of time before we know who’s next. People’s political views, ignorance and apathy empower their governments. It’s too convenient to be silent.”
“What is happening to Ukraine is a matter of great shame. But, again, nothing is forever.”
Weeks of diplomacy failed to stop Russia, which amassed more than 150,000 troops on Ukraine’s borders in what the West called Europe’s largest military build-up since World War II.
Western allies initially imposed some sanctions on Russia, then followed on Thursday with a pledge to financially punish Russia and impose severe punishment.