‘She is not afraid’: Ukrainians in Europe speak to their loved ones back home

“She has survived a lot,” he said in an interview with The Washington Post after Russia launched its assault on Ukraine on Thursday, forcing families to flee and prompting Western officials to condemn President Vladimir Putin for “bringing war back to Europe.”

“My mother and grandmother were nearly killed during the Second World War,” Paska said, explaining that his mother “still remembers the terror” of Nazi atrocities in Europe.

This time she is preparing and she is ready, Paska said. “She tells me she is not afraid.” Many others he knew in his native country were making their own preparations: “They are ready to fight.”

Zoryana Skalych said her grandmother did not want to leave western Ukraine either: “She said she would feel much safer in her own home than being away and being afraid that there will be nothing to come back to.”

From Germany, Skalych worried for her family back in her hometown but respected their decision not to flee to the crowded border. “I try to support them and my country,” she said, before heading out to a protest in Munich, one of many taking place around the world in solidarity with Ukraine.

“Every day, we are standing to talk to the world. This is something we can do,” she said, recalling that Russian friends abroad wrote to tell her they protested in their cities.

She now falls asleep clutching her phone at night, and wakes up before dawn to check the news. For Skalych and other Ukrainians in the diaspora, “there is a feeling of community, because otherwise sitting at home alone would feel very miserable,” she said.

Anna left Ukraine almost 30 years ago; she said it still feels like home.

“My grandparents are still there, I have memories there,” she said in an interview with The Post as she prepared breakfast for her family in her kitchen in London.

The 35-year-old said the attacks in Ukraine scared her, as her 11-month-old daughter, Alice, cooed in the background. Anna asked that her full name not to be used to protect her family.

Her grandparents, who are from the city of Gorlovka, in the Donetsk region — in territory held by Russian-backed separatists — had described the sound of gunfire in recent days but would not be fleeing despite the risk, she said.

“They decided to stay and don’t want to leave,” she said, adding that her grandma and granddad, whom she calls “babushka” and “dedushka,” had only seen their first great-granddaughter, Alice, on WhatsApp.

“I wish I could take my daughter to see her great-grandparents, and it’s very sad for us all that this is not possible,” she said.