“Valia, That’s It, We Need to Run”: The Story of a Couple with Disabilities on the Russian Border and Their Evacuation through the Countryside.

 

 

This article was published in Ukrainian and then translated into English.

The Vovchansk community’s online chat is flooded with messages like, “Does anyone know where (names) are? Please message me. Any information is vital.” As you scroll through other messages, you freeze: “Are they alive? Where are they? How are they now?”

For two months now, residents of Vovchansk and surrounding villages have been desperately seeking information about their relatives, friends, and neighbours from every possible source. People united by a common calamity find solace in communicating with fellow countrymen who understand, like no one else, the hell they’re going through. After Russia’s renewed assault on the Kharkiv region in May of this year, the Vovchansk community suffered huge losses. The war’s devastation hasn’t receded and continues to tear people’s lives apart.

Thousands of families were forced to flee their homes, some for the second time. After Kharkiv Oblast was liberated from occupation in the fall of 2022, many had eagerly returned home from evacuation. For others, like 67-year-old Valentyna and her 70-year-old husband Anatolii (names changed for privacy) from a village near Vovchansk, it was the first time.

Our Fight For Right team met this elderly couple in a Kharkiv hostel, where they had found temporary shelter after being evacuated on May 12.

The evacuation was gruelling for both, psychologically and physically. Now, Anatolii struggles to handle all matters (such as registering as an internally displaced person, opening the necessary accounts, etc.) for both himself and his wife, despite relying on a cane and a crutch to walk. Valentyna is barely mobile after the evacuation; her health has severely deteriorated. Transporting someone with a compression fracture of the spine, like Valentyna’s, is risky under any conditions, let alone bumping across fields under fire.

What was the biggest challenge for Valentyna and Anatolii as elderly people with disabilities during Russia’s war against Ukraine? Why do they, like hundreds of others, choose not to register their disability? We talked about this with them on a warm summer evening in Kharkiv, punctuated by air raid alarms.

“We were occupied immediately”

Their village is only 7 kilometers from Vovchansk and a few kilometers from the Russian border. On February 24, 2022, their son woke them up with alarming news: “The war has begun! Tanks are coming.” Anatolii recalls Russian military equipment, gathered near the border for a full-scale invasion, rolling past their house in columns.

“I counted and counted. I got to 78, then stopped… the Russian military vehicles kept going on and on,” adds Valentyna. “No one expected that Russia would do such a thing.”

The village’s capture by the enemy in 2022 certainly didn’t bring as much grief as it does now. Leaving several hundred occupiers in the village, the rest of the Russian army then pushed deeper into the Kharkiv region.

“We were occupied immediately. They (the Russian military) took charge, going from house to house. Where there were no people, locks were broken, and everything was stolen. However, that didn’t affect us directly. We just didn’t have anything to eat. Supplies ran out, we ground wheat to bake bread, but there was no yeast… It was scary,” Valentyna recalls with a sigh.

Valentyna and Anatolii’s children and grandchildren, along with their families, quickly fled for Europe to avoid remaining under occupation. This is what almost all young families did, prioritising their children’s safety. Most of those who stayed in the village were older people who didn’t dare to leave due to their health or fear of seeking shelter in a foreign land.

Valentyna and Anatolii agonised over what to do, but due to their health, they never made the decision to leave. And when the occupiers were driven out of the Kharkiv region, they hoped that soon the war would end, their relatives from abroad would return home, hug them, share their adventures, and that life would return to normal.

They took comfort in knowing that as long as both houses – their daughters’ and theirs – survived, they could return and resume their chores around the house. However, the restless border area, where Ukrainian defenders caught subversive intelligence groups, and the constant threat of a new Russian offensive, kept their loved ones from returning from abroad, just like other families in the village.

“It was possible to live there”

After Kharkiv region was liberated in September 2022, Valentyna and Anatolii relied mainly on relatives and neighbours. Throughout this time, they managed to do chores and take care of their two favourite dogs – an Alabai and a Pekingese.

Thanks to volunteers and humanitarian aid, the family had access to life’s necessities during the full-scale war. “We didn’t need a social worker. Humanitarian aid arrived every month – both food and hygiene kits. Volunteers brought bread every Tuesday. Our pensions came steadily. The store was working. So, it was possible to live there,” Valentyna says.

“We were always at home,” Anatolii adds. “I would only start the walk-behind tractor to go to the village council to collect humanitarian aid and our pensions, and then I would come back.”

Despite the village being without gas, the power supply was restored. In case of power outages, the family had a generator. So, Valentyna and Anatolii stayed constantly in touch with their relatives. They even had a great-granddaughter born abroad, and daily video calls, with stories about what the little one had learned, became a source of joy for the couple.

At the same time, several families who fled the occupation at the beginning of the full-scale invasion even returned to the village. “Some people came, at least to plant gardens, hoping they would be able to harvest under a peaceful sky. Everything has already grown… And now…” Anatolii sighs and trails off.

“When they started shelling, we could tell by the sounds what was shooting and where it was flying”

In late April of this year, as the Russian army began mercilessly bombarding the Kharkiv region with aviation and artillery, residents of the Vovchansk community were once again forced to leave their homes to seek safe shelter. Even those who hadn’t dared to leave due to their health, like Valentyna and Anatolii, were now desperate to escape.

“The cultural centre was destroyed, half of the new school was reduced to ruins, the kindergarten closed down, and even the store shut its doors… Russian drones circled overhead like rooks. We couldn’t even go through the yard because it might have contained unexploded ordnance… One woman ventured into the garden, and an explosive was thrown at her… That woman died… They (the Russian military) seemed to be enjoying themselves… It’s terrible what happened. Ammunition could be dropped from a drone onto civilian vehicles just like that. When they started shelling, we could identify by the sounds what was shooting and where it was flying. So many houses were bombed on our street… There are no windows or doors left in my daughter’s house. That house was new; we had put everything into it, trying to make it as modern as possible,” Anatolii recounts painfully.

The Russians bombed the Vovchansk community particularly mercilessly from May 9 to 10. “Although I was opposed to leaving,” Anatolii sincerely admits, “when I saw what they were doing to us, I said, ‘That’s it, Valia, we need to run.’ We immediately called 102.”

Hours of waiting turned into days, because evacuating under shelling is an extremely difficult task. Additionally, just like Valentyna and Anatolii, hundreds more families in the Vovchansk community, including people with disabilities and the elderly, were desperate to escape the shelling. On the third day, two vehicles arrived, and Valentyna and Anatolii quickly got into them and drove straight across the fields, fleeing from pursuit by enemy drones.

“Unfortunately, we couldn’t take our dogs with us then,” Valentyna says sadly. “We only took a few personal belongings. But we made an agreement with our neighbour who stayed in the village that he would take care of them.”

“We have a disability without a certificate”

Upon arriving in Kharkiv, Valentyna and Anatolii were offered a room in a hostel on the second floor, where they were helped to settle in and get comfortable. Volunteers provided everything they needed and continue to come by to ask if they need anything, offering help, including the Fight For Right organisation in particular. There are medical professionals who provide consultations directly to internally displaced people in such temporary shelters. Although the family is grateful to everyone for their care, they do not take it for granted.

“We had all the amenities, water, and we had a two-story house; we had everything for a comfortable life… We had been building that for years. Everything remained there. We came here with three bags,” Anatolii says.

“We don’t belong here in the hostel. We’re not used to being ‘babysat’ in such conditions. I hope our children will find us separate housing. But for now, we’re here because we’re not healthy and still need treatment,” adds Valentyna’s husband.

Years of hard work took a toll on their health; they used to be hardworking people. In his youth, Anatolii was a driver for a local agricultural enterprise, while Valentyna worked at an embroidery factory in Vovchansk. Later, they started growing vegetables, built greenhouses at home, and sold their produce in Vovchansk and Kharkiv.

But for the past ten years, Anatolii has struggled to walk without assistance. “They offered to perform surgery (joint replacement) costing more than 140,000 hryvnias. But where would we get that money if our pension is only 2,800? Neither my wife nor I filed for disability because it’s too much trouble; we would have to go from hospital to hospital… And the payments are just as small. So we don’t want to do that,” Anatolii explains. “When they say, ‘give us a disability certificate,’ I answer that we have a disability without a certificate.”

Valentyna’s health deteriorated significantly in the autumn of 2022. “I had such painful ‘shots’ in my back that I wanted to scream. In a moment, my health failed, and that was it. I had a tomography scan as prescribed by the doctor. The doctor’s report states that there was a compression fracture of the spine, and on top of that, I have arthrosis, signs of osteochondrosis, spondyloarthrosis, and more. The treatment helped a little, and I walked with a supportive corset. But the off-road evacuation worsened the situation; now I can’t walk, and I can’t sit for long either,” Valentyna laments. She plans to see a doctor in the near future.

Many unanswered questions lingered after our conversation: What would motivate evacuating from front-line settlements in advance, under calmer circumstances? Why do people with disabilities wait until the last moment to evacuate, exposing themselves and volunteers to greater threats? Would disabled and older people consider evacuating more quickly if they were confident that their pension or social security benefits would cover their living expenses elsewhere, including rent? Would people with disabilities decide to evacuate more quickly if they knew that any settlement provides architectural accessibility in both apartments and administrative or commercial buildings, allowing them to freely access social, banking services, etc.?

Valentyna and Anatolii long to return home immediately. “We would go home right away if only we had a place to return to and if there were no shelling,” Anatolii says sadly. He and his wife would first retrieve their dogs from the shelter, where they were placed by animal volunteers at the end of May, when the shelling had subsided a little.

Meanwhile, every evening Valentyna and Anatolii review messages in the chat room of the Vovchansk community. They are heartened to see people unite and help each other to obtain necessary Technical Inventory Bureau certificates for property, find doctors or lawyers, rent housing, find free shelters, and secure jobs. But above all, they are worried about their acquaintances with whom they have lost contact, and they are searching for news about them.

Time after time, reminders pop up in the chat feed not to disclose the addresses of people waiting to be evacuated, but to submit applications through official channels like 102 or through verified volunteer organizations. There were cases when pseudo-volunteers took people to Russia.

The Fight For Right team, for its part, encourages people with disabilities and the elderly to evacuate from front-line settlements. We are ready to provide comprehensive support for this challenge.

If you need help, please send your request and information about yourself to help@ffr.org.ua or call the Fight For Right hotline at 0-800-30-66-33.

This article was written by Iryna Dovhal