A sober and swift farewell on the terrace of a bar in Sant Feliu de Llobregat (Barcelona) marked the beginning of Ivan Vepryk’s journey to war. He is 43 years old and is the father of three children, ages 18, 7 and 5. Installed for more than a decade in Catalonia, he earned his living as a car mechanic, but he did not doubt that he had to return to Ukraine as soon as he became aware of the Russian occupation. On Sunday afternoon he got into a blue Mercedes van along with five other compatriots, with the shared desire to reach the Polish border as soon as possible. “We are going to look for the route that will take us to the territory of Ukraine the soonest,” said Ivan, this Monday, answering the phone from a highway in Germany.
“We are close to entering Poland,” said a voice through the hands-free. The six travelers barely knew each other, but they bonded instantly when the owner of the van posted online that he was planning to go to Ukraine, and that he had vacant seats. “He put up an ad saying that he was going to fight, and that he was looking for partners,” Ivan details. They say that the announcement received abundant responses, but that there was no time to organize a selection process. “We couldn’t waste time going out,” the volunteers allege. “My father is 85 years old and he started crying talking to me on the phone,” he adds. His father’s advice to stay away from the conflict was ignored. “We have reason to return. Your country is like your mother, and when your mother needs you, you go ”, he justifies.
Meanwhile, in Coma-ruga, near Tarragona, fifty Ukrainian citizens who were surprised by the outbreak of the armed conflict on vacation in Barcelona are staying in a hostel set up by the Generalitat. Karina Yanchevska is 21 years old and a student. She traveled to Catalonia with her boyfriend and two other couples, and they planned to return home on Friday, February 25. The Russian invasion caught them by surprise, they confess. “Without food, without money, without the possibility of asking for a job or renting a place to sleep, we went to the consulate,” says Karina. “We’re not going back because we don’t want to be bombed,” she says. She points out that her mother and her sister have fled to Poland, but her father remains in the city of Rivne, near the border with Belarus.
Mariana Sorochuk, 33 years old, introduces herself as the “informal leader” of the group of Ukrainians staying in Coma-ruga. Her phone doesn’t stop ringing. “I am a refugee,” she says, before pointing out that she is a “political activist” in her country. She concedes that the Russian offensive left her bewildered, “she thought she was dreaming, how could this happen?” She appreciates being able to talk to the media to publicize the “intolerable” situation in her country. “Ukraine is Europe,” she exclaims.
What affects the most is what happens closest. To not miss anything, subscribe.
subscribe
In this shelter near the beach, the situation is one of tense waiting. While in a room a group of young people hang out playing table tennis, in a corner there is someone who bursts into tears while chatting on the phone. Mariana was traveling alone, but she says that in the shelter there are “families with small children, couples and groups of friends.” She indicates that they are people from the upper-middle class, but that they have all been left homeless. “Most credit cards are already blocked, and if one still works, it is inoperative because the commissions are very high.”
Meanwhile, in Terminal 1 of the Barajas airport, Vladimir Avramchenko, a 57-year-old Ukrainian, jokes: “My name is Vladimir. Like President Putin, but I’m not Putin, huh? Puzzled, he looks for the spot where he has met her daughter, Kristina, 32. Along with her husband, her young son and her mother, they have just landed in Spain after fleeing the war raging in Ukraine. His father, who has been living in Madrid for five years, will take the opposite route next Friday: he wants to return to fight for his country.
![Vladimir Avramchenko, this Monday, in Barajas (Madrid).](https://imagenes.elpais.com/resizer/TWd-qFcaQT-5IJIFhtzN72gBTl0=/414x0/cloudfront-eu-central-1.images.arcpublishing.com/prisa/2JR4VTGECNEBBFJZNLKNREGHM4.jpg)
Vladimir is a stocky man of medium height with intense blue eyes. After having worked as a delivery man, he is now unemployed. Given the invasion of his country, he bought a plane ticket to Poland, from where he intends to reach the border and cross into Ukraine as he can. “I am going to war because it is my country. Everyone who has a brain is afraid. I have fear also. But if my country needs my help, I’m going to go”, a firm statement in weak Spanish as he walks through the corridors of Terminal 2, where his daughter was at the end.
Upon meeting, Avramchenko lifts his grandson in his arms. Kristina and her family managed to leave Kiev before Russian troops arrived in the Ukrainian capital to take refuge with her mother-in-law in Lviv, a city near the Polish border. Kristina, who studied Economics in Spain, returned to Ukraine after graduating. In the country she left her job, her apartment, her car in a parking Polish and “his Spanish diploma”. And they have returned to their “second homeland” pushed by the war. The four will settle, “for the time being”, in Vladimir’s house. They will only spend four days together, until Friday, when he has a ticket to fly to Poland. On his father’s decision to fight as a militiaman: “It’s his life, it’s his decision.”
Exclusive content for subscribers
read without limits
#Ukrainians #Spain #war #Ivan #comrades #front #van