Our country’s representatives are assisting a Lithuanian-born Ukrainian politician trapped by the war in Vilnius to evacuate her four-year-old daughter from Kyiv while she is also taking care of war refugees, Dalia Gudavičiūtė writes in lrytas.lt portal
Ukrainian politician Olha Bodnar-Petrovskaja, born in Ukmergė, has been burdened with a heavy load these days. When she arrived in Vilnius last week, many did not believe that Russian President Vladimir Putin could start a war in Ukraine.
The politician, who has two daughters, was going to visit her eldest, who is studying in Vilnius, and left her four-year-old for a few days with relatives in Kyiv.
Bodnar-Petrovskaia, a member of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine with the fifth and sixth convocation, is currently the Chancellor of the parliamentary group of the Batkivshchyna party led by Yulia Tymoshenko.
She had no intention of staying in Lithuania any longer, but now that Russia has attacked Ukraine, she cannot sleep at night: what will happen to her little daughter, who is still in Kyiv?
Lithuanian politicians rushed to the aid of a colleague in distress. They were assisted by Lithuanian embassy staff. But getting a small child out of Kyiv under attack was no easy task.
Several Lithuanian families have travelled to Ukraine, hoping to bring their children back. They have promised to bring back the daughter of O. Bodnar-Petrovskaja. Yesterday, a child rescue expedition managed to bring the girl to Lviv.
Meanwhile, at the request of Lithuanian public organisations, Mrs Bodnar-Petrovskaja has been looking for people in Ukraine who need help from our country. She has been looking after Ukrainians who wanted to come to Lithuania. However, they were few in number.
– I arrived in Vilnius on Monday of last week. No one was predicting war in Ukraine. They only said that some kind of military action was being prepared. There was talk that Putin would want to officially seize the Luhansk and Donetsk regions and seize some of the residential areas close to these regions, which are important because of their strategic location,” the woman, who was wracked by sleeplessness and worry, told Lietuvos rytas slowly.
– But you are a politician and, presumably, you received information from other sources?
– The information we received did not foretell a real war.
Some of the militaries did know more than the politicians because our army was prepared for war. People who were not prepared could not have resisted an attack by the Russian army in this way.
After the Maidan, we already know how things work. The first day is filled with horror, the second with despair and stress, and the body is getting used to it by the third day. But the military reacted differently.
– You speak excellent Lithuanian. What is your connection to Lithuania?
– I was born and grew up in Ukmergė. Then I entered Taras Shevchenko University in Kyiv and stayed there, started a family, became a politician. So in my family, Polish, Lithuanian and Ukrainian blood mixed.
Now my eldest daughter is studying in Vilnius. She is studying very well. My younger daughter, who is four years old, stayed in Kyiv. My colleagues in Lithuanian politics are doing everything they can to help get her out of there.
I am trying to lead this expedition from Vilnius – I am sleep deprived and very stressed. I cannot imagine how a four-year-old child will cope with all this. We tell her stories about catching a mouse for her kitten in the hideout.
Every day, more and more Lithuanian institutions and organisations and citizens are announcing that they are ready to accept war refugees from Ukraine. It has been announced that more than 660,000 Ukrainians have already gone abroad. However, the number of refugees in Lithuania is still small.
– We are very grateful to Poland because what it has done is unprecedented. Poland has waived some of the requirements for border crossers, no longer requiring a biometric passport, allowing border crossings with an internal passport, and allowing travel with animals without all the paperwork – a passport for the animal and a rabies vaccination certificate are sufficient.
Many border crossings are open to pedestrians. This is where the Ukrainians have gravitated.
If other countries bordering Ukraine were to make such concessions to refugees, it would be much easier because the congestion on the Polish border would end.
The day before yesterday, a television tower in Kyiv was attacked. Five people were reported killed.
– Why do Ukrainians from Poland not go to Lithuania?
– Ukrainians in Poland do not have language problems. Slovakia is also a very acceptable country for this reason.
People realise that they have come for at least a month and try to find a place where they can communicate.
Ukrainians have a lot of respect for Lithuania, and our relations are warm. But refugees do not come here, probably because they have little information: who will meet them, where will they find shelter?
It is much easier to go where you have already been and worked: to Italy, Spain, and Portugal. Portugal, for example, grants refugee status to Ukrainians without any conditions.
Others go to their relatives – many Ukrainians are already working in those countries.
But I have just coordinated the crossing of 18 Ukrainians across the Polish border. Lithuanians were already waiting for them minibuses to bring them to Lithuania. I am not the only one doing this.
– Maybe many Ukrainians are afraid to go to Lithuania because it is so close to unpredictable Belarus?
– I have been staying in this hotel for ten days, and at night I can hear the NATO fighter jets flying over Vilnius very clearly. You may not hear them, but I can hear them howling – after the Maidan, my hearing is more sensitive to such sounds.
– What are Ukrainian politicians doing these days?
– They are walking around with submachine guns at the moment. Tymoshenko and her team have armed themselves and organised a self-defence network. They cooperate with NGOs, coordinate humanitarian aid, take care of new hospitals, and organise military aid delivery through their US colleagues.
– Does the opposition do the same?
– There is no position or opposition in Ukraine at the moment. The war has united everyone. I call the politicians a joint force to save Ukraine. However, I don’t know what the “Opposition Platform for Life” (a pro-Russian party. – Ed) is doing.
At the moment, the Rada is working differently. The Council adopts decisions and then sends them to the deputies of the Council for information via an electronic system. In my opinion, this is correct. After all, Kyiv is being bombed, and one of the most targeted areas by Russia is the quarter where the Presidency, the Parliament and the Government are located.
– Are there many prominent leaders among Ukrainian politicians? Will the world be surprised many times over, as it has been these days, to see the change in the Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelensky?
Many have now seen him through different eyes. After all, he could have run away. He could have been scared, but no. He is behaving like the leader of a nation. I do not doubt that he will continue to be so. No one will allow him to change. And he will not want to be the same again. I am convinced that many more such leaders will emerge.
Listen, Mr Putin has done a terrible thing: there has never been such a mass disgust, perhaps even hatred, of everything Russian. And what will happen when the children grow up who have experienced all this horror by hiding in hiding places at night?
By the way, Lithuania should learn a lesson from us – do you know where your hiding places are? I am not saying that we should immediately rush to build new ones. But make sure that the existing ones have water supplies, medicines, and facilities to spend the night. After all, six children have already been born during the shelling in Kyiv. One by caesarean section. There must be bandages in the shelters.
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