Bus of Ukrainian refugees returning to Odessa

The silence in the car is broken only by music videos broadcast on TV, which almost no one watches. A few minutes before the start, the young woman rushes to the North Station in Chisinau to catch the eyes of the man who greeted her in Moldova for a while with closed and teary eyes. A sign on the car window confirms that we are on one of the buses that is returning home despite the war: “Odessa”.

It is 7:55 am, 15 minutes left and the minibus is already full of women and children who one day decided to leave Ukraine to defend themselves from the Russian invasion. Now, while none of them trust that peace will be ensured in the south of the country, they have decided to return, as hundreds of people have already done in the last week, days before the announcement of a possible change in military strategy. From Russia.

A photo of a child drawing a mother who died under the influence of a grenade, an image of the ruins of Mariupol, a portrait of a childhood friend who died in Mykolaiv … Marina spins in her seat on the bus. Show one after another on the cell phone the horror he decided to approach. Fearlessness and insecurity prefer the helplessness of exile. When asked why he is returning, despite the expressed fear of his words, he repeats the same phrase over and over again: “Because it is my home.”

The bus heads to the border, about two hours from the capital, and the Ukrainian, with black hair and open eyes, describes life in the war in a hurry, although ground fighting has not reached his city. “Many people do not understand what it is like to take a shower when the alarm goes off,” said a 40-year-old woman. “Five or six alarms are heard, it is impossible to bear.”

Relax the “nervous system”

Two weeks ago, Maria decided to flee to Odessa, Romania, where she was accompanied by several friends: “After my friend’s funeral, I needed a break to calm my nervous system, but sooner or later we will all be back home.” After a bit of strength recovery. “I calmed down a bit there, but I was constantly receiving anti-aircraft alarms on my cell phone and I already knew what was happening.”

Since the start of the war, his city has been preparing for an “imminent” siege of Russia, which did not happen. Russia declared “the end of the first phase” of the war last Friday, and after unsuccessful attempts to approach Odessa, the Kremlin insists it will focus its forces on Donbas. The next day, Russian troops bombed the eastern part of the country, home to most of the war refugees.

Marina, like the dozens of refugees we spoke to in Moldova, does not trust Putin’s word. He does not return after the Russian statement. When he returned, he insisted that he “was at home.”

Shortly before settling on the little slope, Sasha does not even believe in Russia, but thinks that, as several Western analysts have already warned before making an official statement, his troops are forced to change strategy and concentrate. Forces in the separatist region of Donbas. He admits that although he is a bit quiet about it, he does not return to Ukraine for that reason either. He arrived in the Moldovan capital on March 4, where he was met at an acquaintance house. “We came because it was very difficult, they were shooting, bombs were falling in the nearby areas,” Sasha said. “Of course, I’m still very scared … I’m coming back because I have money left, I have to go back to work.”

The Ukrainian is returning to the war-torn Mykolaiv region, but to a village that he says is “quieter.”

Lyudmila closes her eyes from time to time, but is unable to pose and opens them again to observe the landscape from the glass. He spent the last two weeks in the Moldovan capital, where he arrived with two sons-in-law and grandchildren. On the first day of the war he went with them to take them safely to a relative’s house because, as he says, the children asked him to. But he came home.

Two weeks ago he returned to the Moldovan capital to deliver items to his sons-in-law and grandchildren. “Because they left with almost no clothes and what they took was winter clothes, I went back to Chisinau to bring spring clothes,” said a woman who works in agriculture. Her home, located in a village in the Odessa region, is home to her husband, 58, and a strawberry farm he runs. He shows photos of the red fruit he picked. In one of them is seen his grandson biting.

“The campaign will start in a few weeks, what am I doing here? “I want to go home,” said the Ukrainian, who is emotionally disturbed when he talks about his grandchildren, whom he has just said goodbye to. Sighing while looking at their photos in Ukraine: a chocolate cake baked by them, the sisters dressed together, bit one of the boy’s strawberries … about the life that stopped on February 24th.

Flows in two directions

Arriving at the Palanka border, the car brakes for a second while its passengers prepare passports, and some children take the opportunity to spread their legs after a few hours of travel. At this point, closest to the symbolic city of Odessa, the flow of people is happening in both directions. While the bus continues its journey shortly after, and a long line of cars with Ukrainian license plates waits in line to return to the country during the war, dozens of refugees, mostly women and children, pull out their suitcases and arrive in Moldova in search. Protection. The same vans that take refugees to the Palanka refugee reception point are now filled with people who want to return to their homes, many of them in Odessa.

In front of the Moldovan checkpoint near the border, many families are waiting to return to Ukraine on foot. Olga is waiting there with her four children, who are returning home in euphoria. “I want to see my father again,” said 11-year-old Vitalik, who could not help but smile. “A house is a house …” says his sister, 16-year-old Nasta. Ilya is returning to Odessa with his teenage daughter because, he said, “a month has passed since his request for leave and the area remains more or less calm.” – If it gets complicated, we will go again, – says the woman.

A few meters from the border, from the icy wind that hit Palanka this week, Tanya is waiting for the bus in the opposite direction at an angle. It is also from Odessa, but can no longer stand it. Tired of the anxiety accumulated in every anti-aircraft alarm, the knowledge of the news of the bombing from the sea, the fear that every picture of Kherson, Mykolaiv or Mariupol will be repeated in his city. “If we see that there really are no more bombs on our territory, we will come back, but we are tired, it can not continue like this, we must be calm,” said the Ukrainian, who was surrounded by suitcases.