The future of Ukraine is being played out today in Kiev and on platform number 5 of the Lviv station, the city on the border with Poland and the most European Ukrainian city (725,000 inhabitants). The capital is the symbol of the resistance against the Russian invader; the Lviv platform, from which the trains to Poland depart, is the path that leads hundreds of thousands of women and children, families of combatants, to safety. Convoys from all over the country arrive non-stop at the magnificent style station art nouveau Inaugurated in 1904 under the reign of Emperor Francisco José I. The monumentality of the building dwarfs the humanitarian catastrophe that it houses these days.
More than half of the 1.5 million refugees from Ukraine, according to the UN, have crossed into Poland, the vast majority from Lviv. Every day that passes, the displaced from the front arrive in greater numbers. On the platforms, however, a surprising calm prevails, while thousands of people crowd outside.
Over the days, the order and distribution of the crowd has improved. The authorities have managed to keep the platforms clear. In the queues there are hardly any discussions despite the fact that the wait can be more than 24 hours. What there is are thousands of children without understanding what has happened to their lives and mothers with gaunt faces. Teenagers try to take refuge in their world, like Karina, 15 years old and from Kharkov —the country’s second largest city in population (1.5 million)—, who on Saturday explained to this newspaper that when she could, she tried to read something from the Stephen King novels that he carried in his backpack.
The little ones do not play or run around: they stay with their mothers or ask permission to approach the waiting neighbors who transport pets. The dogs are caressed with relish by the children. The cats spend their days locked in their transport cages. Stanislava, an 8-year-old girl from Kiev, said that her only hope in this long wait is to play with her cat. On the other hand, her friend Vladislava was not allowed to keep her guinea pigs: she wanted to convince herself that when she returned to her house they would have survived because she had left them “a lot of food”. At the Lviv station there are volunteers who distribute food for dogs and cats, and who try to save a few of the many pets that end up being abandoned.
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In the outskirts of the station, under the three imposing domes and the Ukrainian flag, a river flows in constant movement made up of people, colored coats and suitcases. On the walls of the station there are many announcements and instructions for those who arrive in Lviv: a notice reminds men that they must register at the Army offices and that they cannot leave Ukraine. A note summarizes the two options that women have to continue to the border with Poland, 70 kilometers away: the train or the buses that wait at the station stops. To go by bus there are two possibilities: get on the free ones, which means queuing longer, and the private ones, more comfortable and faster, but paying 2,000 hryvnias (around 60 euros).
The train has one advantage: it can disembark refugees directly at the Polish station in Przemysl. Traveling by vehicle means spending at least one day inside the vehicle, or walking no less than two hours to the queue at the Shehyni border post, opposite Poland, according to the information panels. The hardships that these families go through until they reach the Lviv station only seem to be relieved when they cry or with the moment of contained joy of the mothers when accessing the last section before platform number five, the one with the underground corridors that cross the tracks.
Relief organizations from the Government, NGOs, the Red Cross or the Greek-Catholic Church, the majority in western Ukraine, maintain a relief camp day and night where it is possible to stock up on food, water and clothing. Drums that serve as braziers warm those who wait outside with temperatures below 5 degrees below zero. It is common to see old people sitting in front of these bonfires, the few of the older generations who have dared to undertake this painful odyssey. Some people with psychiatric disorders wander, scream, or cry inconsolably. At the station, along with the municipal offers to temporarily house those who want to rest in Lviv, a local psychological care service is announced, in person or by telephone for consultation and assistance.
Trains leaving Lviv for other regions of Ukraine are mostly empty. This was the case with the convoy that stopped at noon on Sunday in Lviv from Kherson, a city at the mouth of the Dnieper River. That train brought hundreds of families and left already decongested towards Uzhorod, on the border with Slovakia. Kherson was the first city that fell into the hands of the Russian occupier in his offensive to seize the Ukrainian Black Sea coast. As of Saturday, 113,000 Ukrainians had fled through Slovakia.
Shifts are organized so that those who need it occupy the available seats in the waiting room of the station. The atmosphere is so charged that a woman asks a toilet for help because of dizziness. One of the consequences of the war is that for the Ukrainians, the covid pandemic has ceased to exist. If someone gets sick, it is ignored. Exceptions are those who wear a mask or who can wash their hands regularly. Safety distances to avoid contagion are impossible to maintain.
In the great hall of the station, on one of the screens that in times of peace communicated the arrival and departure of trains, the railway company projects photographs of the bombings and the destruction caused by the Russian troops. There is no one who pays attention to the images, many have been survivors of these horrors, others have their minds on the other side of the border, preparing the next stage of their escape, far from their country.
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