Alisa Kosheleva walks the cobbled streets of the city of Lviv, almost afraid to blink. She wears a zip-up hoodie, T-shirt, and gray sweatpants with an image of Mickey Mouse on them, despite the fact that it's 40 degrees outside. Light snow falls on her.
A mother separated from her child during a war is a fresh wound that belies her casual look. The 32-year-old can't decide what is worse, waiting for news when there is no, or trying to gather information from the photos and videos that make it out of her hometown of Mariupol, now besieged and slowly starving without supplies.
Kosheleva left Mariupol in February to visit Barcelona. It was her first vacation in three years and she traveled outside of Ukraine for the first time. It wasn't an easy decision to leave Kirill behind, but he was with his father and grandmother. She shows me photos of Kirill on her phone. They had a video call every day when she was in Barcelona. She showed him the waves and the sun. Her boy held up a medal from his first taekwondo competition.
Kosheleva was forced to return to Mariupol after Russia launched a full-scale assault on Ukraine. She made it only as far as Lviv, a large city near the border with Poland that has become a safe haven for Ukrainians fleeing violence.
The exodus of 3 million Ukrainians is the largest in Europe since World War II. 2 million people are estimated to be displaced within the nation.
The war has highlighted traditional gender stereotypes, such as men being shamed if they don't fight. Most men are barred from leaving the country if they are older than 18. The state encourages women to make their families a priority.
They called it Ukraine Home. They were 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217 800-273-3217
As those fleeing the fighting squeeze onto trains, buses, and cars heading west, a smaller contingent is rushing home from abroad. More than 260,000 Ukrainians have returned since the invasion began, according to the Ukrainian border guard. Some of the women are also fighting or joining the war effort. The majority are going back to their families. They are the women who look after the children of sons in the Ukrainian army, the daughters who will wait out the war with elderly parents, the sisters who lend a hand to their brothers, and the mothers, like Kosheleva, who return home in the hope of reunification.
Kosheleva was in Poland when she spoke to her son. She hadn't heard from him after the next day. My body knows it must rest for a few hours, but I'm wondering what will happen if the message goes through this time. What if there is a connection?
The war-weary women and children disembarked from the morning train in the Polish town of Przemysl on the border with Ukraine and made their way down the ramps. There was a smaller line of people going in the opposite direction. The latter group included Ukrainian men returning to defend their country, foreign fighters responding to President Zelensky's call for an international legion, humanitarians hauling bundles of aid, and dozens of mothers, faces framed by fur. Over the course of several days, I spoke with more than 10 of them, women who were desperate to get their children back.
Meet the foreign fighters who risk their lives for their country.
"What mother wouldn't do this?" asks Natali Khmel, 33, who traveled for three days from Jerusalem, where she has resided for the past four years since her divorce. Her two children, Artyom and Anastasia, lived with their father in her native Kyiv. Scores of civilians, including families fleeing in their cars, were killed when Russian airstrikes bombarded small towns around the Ukrainian capital.
The children were sleeping in the bomb shelter. She looked at social media for updates on her planned route, which would take her to Kyiv. She has six months left to go on her course in Israel, but she gave it up for her personal rescue mission. I must be with them.
Anna sips tea from a small cup. In the summer of last year, a former vet left the eastern Donbas region to work in an Amazon warehouse in Poland to pack boxes for Germany. Hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian women go abroad each year to support their families.
She came back because her two teenage sons need her. Their small town of Druzhkivka borders the region of Donetsk, where Ukrainian forces have been locked in a nearly eight-year conflict with Russia-backed rebels. This time it felt different. I will do my best for them.
A line of people rush through passport control and onto the platform as the Polish border guards open the gates. The mothers board the train and are excited. The train goes past Polish farms and industrial parks.
The train is half full and filthy, scattered with empty food cartons, used toilet paper, and a mound of cat litter. There is no running water, the only toilet is covered in human waste, and plastic bottles of urine dot the carriage floors.
Kosheleva, alone in her anguish, gazes out of the window, cradling her cell phone. She watches two trains with women and children on board. The kids blow hot air onto the windows and draw patterns with their fingers. Some people form peace signs with their hands.
Kosheleva can't think of anything but Kirill. There is a shelter next door to the home of her ex- husband that he and Kirill can use, rather than an ordinary basement, and she takes comfort in that.
A few hours into the journey, Abramosova gets word from a friend that a Russian bombardment destroyed her neighbor's house. She holds up her phone to show me a photo of a pile of rubble as she smokes a cigarette in the space between the carriages.
The wheat fields of Ukraine come into view as the train slows to stop at the border. The guards check the cargo and passengers. The train stops for hours after entering Ukraine. The passengers are told to catch the train that pulled into the station. The mothers stumbled into the local train as they dragged their luggage behind them. There is a lot of laughter and happy tears.
The mood on the train is not good as it travels through threadbare towns. The faces of the men are getting older. Local passengers gather in small groups around their phones to watch the latest videos and news from the front.
She was coming home, but she didn't tell her boys. She wanted to surprise them, telling them not to leave home.
It is past nightfall when the train pulls into the station in Lviv, ending a 10-hour journey that in peacetime would have taken just over two. Most mothers scatter in the dark, hoping to catch a train.
Khmel took her children out as quickly as possible, before sending me a picture of them together. She will apply for her Israeli residency in Romania when the three of them travel there.
The air-raid sirens were ringing as she passed Russian tanks on the way to her town.
Kosheleva was stuck in a hostel. Her mother persuaded her to sit down. She tells me that the information out of Mariupol is unbearable. Russian forces bombed a maternity hospital a day earlier, and there are bodies of civilians lying on the streets.
At least 2,500 people have been killed there. The city of half a million has no power, heat, water, or communications. People are burying their dead in mass graves and people are melting snow to survive. More than 160 cars left Mariupol on March 14 in an attempt to evacuate civilians to Zaporizhzhia, a city about 140 miles to the west. There is a perilous road to safety, but a small group of people are making it out. Kosheleva thinks Kirill is in the convoy.
Kosheleva finally got through to her ex- husband on March 16 after two weeks of total silence. She heard Kirill's voice as she boarded the train.
Reporting by Simmone Shah/New York.
We can be reached at letters@time.com.
All Rights Reserved © 2024
