Refugees, journalists and volunteer soldiers eat Kotelet (chicken fingers) with kapusta (cold salad) at a crowded restaurant, one of the only ones open after 10pm in the center of the small town of Przemysl, on the Polish-Ukrainian border. A few meters away, hundreds of Ukrainian refugees are trying to find space in the halls of the train station, which connects the Polish city to Lviv, Ukraine.
A volunteer soldier calls me in Portuguese and we start talking. He is Iwen Puddo, a former paratrooper in the Portuguese Armed Forces, residing in Germany. He sold his motorcycle and other belongings so he could fight in Ukraine against Russian President Vladimir Putin.
After dinner, we walk together through the square until we reach the train station, where hundreds squeeze into the windows and neo-Baroque chandeliers. Outside the building it’s three degrees below zero. Nobody wants to be exposed to the freezing dawn.
Iwen tells a Polish volunteer that he needs a place to sleep as he has been traveling for two days and wants to fight in Ukraine. Women, children and volunteer soldiers have access to a slightly less crowded room than others to spend the night.
There are grocery carts full of clothes and sleeping bags, donated by the community. As Iwen begins to select a sleeping bag, the Polish volunteer in charge of helping the crowd says in English with a British accent:
“No, these are for whoever is leaving, fighters need it here.” He offers Iwen a sturdy Polish military sleeping bag. “You can have him. Wait here and I’ll find you a good place to sleep.”
Asked if I am also a soldier, I say that I am a journalist and I end up getting the attention of those who are entering Ukraine by choice.
In a corridor where we set up our accommodations, the Polish volunteer talks with a Ukrainian family. “Don’t get on the next train, you’re going to take another train to a town near Germany. There they will have access to a free hotel still in Poland. They can stay as long as they want, weeks if they need to. Then just cross the border and enter Germany.”
open borders
Until last year, Poland’s stance was completely different. President Alexander Lukashenko of Belarus invited thousands of refugees from the Middle East to his country and promised them that they would be able to cross the Polish border smoothly and reach the European Union.
His intention, European leaders said at the time, was to flood the continent with waves of refugees to politically destabilize the bloc. Poland has sent thousands of military personnel to the border to try to stop the illegal entry of immigrants.
To enter Poland or any country in the European Union, refugees had to go through qualification processes that were not usually quick. But this is no longer so. Since last week, Europe’s borders have been opened to refugees from the war in Ukraine.
At Przemysl station, the comings and goings of people don’t stop during the night. I wake up at 3 am with the announcement of the departure of a train for Krakow (Poland). Most refugees are placed in it. The place empties a bit and we have to move to a nearby salon so the hallway we were in is cleaned up.
I can’t sleep anymore. Most of the people in the hall are women and children. There are also groups of students of African origin.
I hear a low, endless noise of conversations, but people are very restrained. Nobody laughs or complains out loud. Only a few children run and talk loudly. All are well dressed and look tired. Volunteers distribute soup, bread and fruit. Children are given stuffed animals or toy cars, taken by Polish police from a large pile of donations.
In fact, there is agglomeration of people and distribution of food, but not because refugees cannot pay. The hotels and restaurants in the city can’t accommodate everyone. There are thousands of people, at least 50,000 a day crossing the Polish border at this and seven other points.
People are also not here for a life with greater opportunities. They want to save their children from fierce Russian bombing, but then they want to go back to their homes.
A thought occurs to me: absolute war, a term coined by Prussian author Clausewitz to describe a situation where conflict is no longer held back by politics or moral constraints, seems to be back in Europe. These refugees are proof of that.
“Best keep the windows closed”
It’s morning at Przemysl station. After having a tomato soup, I head with the Portuguese soldier to a small building, where the border authorities are located, in order to pay for a train to Lviv.
A woman with two children warns that we have to be careful. The train on which she had arrived a few hours ago was hit by gunfire and two people died. I cannot confirm the information, but the moral impact is already made.
Iwen talks to Polish military personnel near the border post. When they understand that he is a volunteer soldier, they are happy, greet him a lot and say: “You are in the wrong place, just go to platform 3 and board the ‘unofficial’ train. You don’t need a ticket, just show your documents”, says one of them.
I often tell friends unfamiliar with Poland that even before the war, it only takes five minutes to be in the country to feel resentment towards the Russians — which definitely did not end the end of Soviet domination.
Once on the train, a Polish immigration officer asks for our documents and says: “Better keep the windows closed”.
Before my Polish chip’s internet signal disappears, I see a BBC news alert saying that Putin had ordered his troops to attack targets indiscriminately. The absolute war…
Strategically important region
The train is on its way and the people are silent, I hear only whispers in the neighboring cabin and the snoring of the Portuguese soldier. I open the window a little and see wheat fields, small frozen ponds and a trench, from which hangs a Ukrainian flag.
Most of the passengers in our car appear to be volunteer soldiers like Iwen. Not from the International Brigade that President Volodymyr Zelensky promised to form. But ordinary Ukrainians, who have left their wives, children, parents and girlfriends safely on Polish soil, are returning to defend their homeland.
I keep thinking about war scenarios. Lviv is the main city in western Ukraine. Two days ago there were rumors that a troop of Russian paratroopers had been dropped nearby. I also remember that there was a large unit of Russian troops in Belarus, about 100 kilometers to the north.
The may try to prevent Ukrainians from receiving weapons donations in this region. Anti-aircraft missiles were promised stinger and attack drones. The Russians control the airspace, so these weapons will have to enter by land, possibly here through the Polish border. This makes the region strategically important and there may be attacks to prevent the delivery of weapons.
“I came here to fight”
The train stops in Ukrainian territory and two soldiers go up to get documents. My passport is stamped. Iwen only has one ID card and that doesn’t seem to satisfy the Ukrainian inspectors. “I came here to fight, Putin is destroying your country. I sold everything I had to come and maybe I won’t leave Ukraine. I don’t want to be sent home like a dog,” she says.
The military women, who appear to be in their early twenties, are moved and ask him to accompany them. He comes back happy, about 30 minutes later, saying: “all right, they just told my country’s embassy. I asked where I can get weapons. They laughed and said I’ll have whatever I want,” he says.
The official procedure would be to communicate the intention to fight to Ukraine through an embassy. But in war there is a way.
The train stops at the final station in Lviv and few people disembark. We are leaving the main platform when distant sirens begin to sound. The train station’s loudspeakers send thousands of passengers, waiting to board to Poland, to seek shelter in the station’s tunnels as an air attack is imminent.
There are runs run at the station, but on the streets not everyone seems to mind. While some try to enter the station, others continue with their chores.
Minutes later the alarm sounds again, but there is no air attack. It may have been triggered by approaching enemy aircraft, which must have had another objective. It’s the tensions of war.
#Direct #Lviv #Ukraine #aboard #war #train #War #games