Shehyni, Medyka Thousands are still waiting here at the Shehyni border crossing in Ukraine. They are waiting to be allowed to go to Poland. Safe from Vladimir Putin’s war. Many couples and young people have walked the last few kilometers, lugging suitcases and shopping bags with them, carrying their children on their shoulders. Some people cry, seem exhausted. Many have already been on the road for almost two days and have covered hundreds of kilometers. Temperatures drop to freezing point at night. Rocket impacts can be heard.
Waiting times at the border between Ukraine and Poland can be up to 24 hours. Since the general mobilization by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Friday, Ukrainian border guards have stopped letting men of military age onto the Polish side. Soldiers are shouting and threatening with the gun so that there is silence.
Those who make it across Ukraine’s borders to the west have overcome the greatest hurdle and escaped the war. 47,000 people from Ukraine came to Poland alone on Friday. 100,000 people since the outbreak of war.
Katerina Kosar is standing with her daughter Diana and her dog Miki in the reception hall of the Przemysl border station. She left her hometown of Kharkiv at four o’clock on Thursday morning. “My husband said I should go to Lviv for a few days to be on the safe side, as I’m heavily pregnant,” she says. “An hour and a half later the bombs fell.”
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The 30-hour journey across Ukraine went smoothly, but her husband, a police officer, remained concerned to the last as the train passed through the middle of the war zone. “I barely got out, but my family, friends and neighbors are stuck in bomb shelters.”
People have left everything behind
Kosar is tired, sad and shocked like everyone else. But she was lucky, also because a family on the train spontaneously gave her their ticket: the man suddenly couldn’t leave the country since Selenski’s general mobilization. Accordingly, women are in the majority among the arrivals. They say everyone helped each other on the train, many traveled without a ticket, and the conductor turned a blind eye. There are other priorities at the moment.
People have left everything behind. Just like Olga from Kiev. She is a podcaster, her partner flew to his family in London on Tuesday. On Thursday she is also on her way to Lviv with her two children.
She had 10,000 euros and the same amount in Ukrainian currency ready for emergencies, along with all her documents. She hadn’t actually planned to leave town, it was just her plan B.
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Not all Ukrainians want to flee. This is shown by the example of Katja and Mikhail, she is Ukrainian, he is Russian. Together with their three children, they just moved into their new apartment in Kiev in January – in a high-rise building in the city center that looks like big Tetris blocks. It’s the most expensive property in town. “We’ve been saving for it for a long time,” says Katja.
“And until three days ago we also thought that we would spend our lives here.” But with Vladimir Putin’s television speech, her life plans would have vanished into thin air. “The war that was so far away was suddenly real.”
The ATMs are empty and petrol is rationed
And yet hundreds of thousands are fleeing. Packed with blankets, pillows and bags, they march towards the EU. Many first go to Poland. But some younger pedestrians also say they want to continue to Spain – far away from the war.
Ukrainian refugees walk past vehicles waiting in front of the border crossing from Ukraine to Moldova. Despite the large crowds, everything runs without chaos.
(Photo: dpa)
Despite all this, most people remain civilized and composed on their way to peace. There is hardly any chaos. Even in a 200-meter-long pile-up outside of Kiev, people still help each other to repair the cars. You all want to get ahead.
Nevertheless, the ATMs are already empty on Thursday, there is no more money. The internet is only available sporadically, the connection is fragile. Gasoline is rationed to around 20 liters at gas stations. Only a few groceries are left to buy.
Poland is experiencing its moment of welcome culture
On their flight to the West, the refugees are greeted by a wave of solidarity. Slovakia, Romania and Moldova have opened their borders. Poland is experiencing its own moment of welcome culture.
The support for the neighbors is overwhelming – politically and socially: The national conservative ruling party Law and Justice (PiS), which in late autumn on the border with Belarus was still relying on pushbacks against non-European refugees thousands of times, is now doing everything it can to cope with the onslaught. These are “real refugees,” said Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, while other government members spoke of brothers and sisters who now needed help.
The Ministry of the Interior set up nine reception centers along the border in a very short space of time. The center of Ukrainian immigration is Przemysl: Mayor Wojciech Bakun explained in an interview on Friday that 4,000 people arrived at the train station alone, and 8,000 more at the nearby Medyka border crossing.
In the corridors next to the tracks, the military handed out donuts, soup, coffee and blankets. The rear part of the building has been converted into a flatbed warehouse. The stern lady, who normally charges three zloty for using the toilet, waves people in in a friendly manner.
Refugee Ukrainians are given warm clothes and food at the border.
(Photo: AP)
Mayor Bakun, also a PiS politician, is coordinating the relief effort on site. “We are the first receiving station,” he explains his understanding of the role. “The people who have arrived so far are tired and disoriented, but mostly healthy.” The regional hospital is equipped to treat the wounded, he assures. There are 1000 beds available. “However, almost everyone travels on straight away, we only provide them with warm clothing, tickets and provisions.”
Thousands of volunteers
So far, the authorities have been surprisingly successful in involving the thousands of volunteers who have turned up at the border practically overnight. At the Medyka border crossing, traffic jams formed not only on the Ukrainian side, but also on the Polish side, as so many people came in their private cars to take refugees to the larger cities for free. In order to channel the ever-increasing flow, the authorities now want to take people in larger buses to a parking lot where the volunteers are waiting with their cars. Nevertheless, the situation on Friday evening is already considerably more hectic than it was in the afternoon.
Katerina Kosar and her family are already on their way to Posen (Poznan), where her uncle will pick them up and take them to Denmark. Like most refugees, she can count on the support of the large Ukrainian diaspora in EU countries. In Poland alone, this is estimated at 1.5 million people. Most have come since 2014, when Russia attacked Ukraine by annexing Crimea.
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