Three Years On – An Englishman in Kyiv

At around 4 a.m. on Thursday, Feb. 24, 2022, we were woken by the explosion of missiles fired on Kyiv by Russia at the start of its full-scale invasion. Having thought that the build-up of Moscow’s troops on Ukraine’s border was nothing but saber-rattling, we first thought the noises were caused by the “binmen” handling the large communal garbage bins – even on the 19th floor they are still audible.

However, as we saw the flashes from the detonations lighting up the skyline from our living room window, we realized that the Vladimir Putin-launched nightmare had come to pass. There then followed a scramble to get the boys up – our youngest had slept through it all – throw some essentials into suitcases, grab the cat and push him reluctantly into his pet carrier.

We had to get out, but where to? Was anywhere in Ukraine safe?

My wife’s family live in the west and after a quick call to her cousin, who lives near Vinnytsia – which had, at that time, been unaffected – it was agreed we’d join them there. The five of us (four humans and the cat) bundled into the car and set off towards the Zhytomyr highway. Very quickly seeing the barely moving column of vehicles full of people with the same idea, we decided we needed an alternative way out.

A near miss

During the height of the COVID pandemic we had rented a small house in the town of Hostomel, which lies about 30 kilometers (19 miles) northwest of the city center, for six months. As a result, we knew the minor roads that would allow us to get ahead of the evacuees’ “megajam,” so we pulled off the highway and headed “across country” towards our previous refuge.

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The route we took intentionally avoided tarmacked main roads and passed through wooded areas, close to the towns of Irpin and Bucha, little thinking of the notoriety that Russian aggression would soon visit on the poor occupants of those settlements.

As we approached Hostomel, seeing several military helicopters flying overhead – we had assumed they were “ours” ferrying Ukrainian troops to combat positions. In fact, as we later learned, we were witnessing the start of the Russian airborne assault on the Antonov airfield.

As we also found out, Russian forces had been shooting up civilian cars and killing their occupants during those first few hours – thank God we didn’t know that at the time.

We arrived safely at my wife’s cousin’s quite late in the evening without any further incident and stayed for just over a week, witnessing the build-up of Ukraine’s territorial defense forces in the area – including the call-up of the brother of the cousin we were staying with – and the appearance of checkpoints around the city of Vinnytsia and the surrounding area.

We avidly followed the course of the fighting on the TV and online and watched in incredulity as Russian forces seemed to be sweeping into the capital – it was truly surreal to see tanks and other armored vehicles trundling past and firing in areas of the city that we knew so well.

We move on

Although my wife’s cousin’s house was quite large, living in such close proximity, on top of the stress the war, the families began to get on one another’s nerves – never had the old adage that “visitors are like fish, they start to smell after three days,” felt so appropriate – and we stayed quite a lot longer than that.

We decided to go to Moldova where “a friend of a friend of my wife” lived, so we packed up once again and set off on Tuesday, March 1, crossing into Moldova in a snowstorm after a ten-hour wait at the border. We arrived in the capital Chișinău around breakfast time the following day and booked into a hotel – which I had stayed in during a business trip a few years before.

I was shocked to find that the cost of the hotel was more than three times what it had been previously – the fact that it was full of Ukrainian “refugees” was the probable reason why the rates had increased.

Tanya’s friend tried to find us an apartment, but the prices for those had become similarly stratospheric. So, after a week or so, we made a decision to pull out and head for the UK – where my mother and daughters from my first marriage lived – a three-day journey through Romania, Germany, Luxembourg, France, and the Eurotunnel.

England proves a disaster – we go home

My older daughter worked at a school in the northwest of England and “pulled a few strings” to get my two boys into a school which was fully subscribed at the time. A friend of hers let us use her house at a “peppercorn rent.” Although my wife wasn’t an official “refugee,” she qualified for the extended visa, so we secured that for her.

It looked like everything was rosy but there was one big issue we hadn’t accounted for. My younger son is autistic and has special educational needs (SEN). These were well catered for in Kyiv – he had a place at a special kindergarten, a dedicated tutor, access to psychological and physical therapists, and friends.

Despite having documentation in a folder two-inches thick full of genetic, neurological, psychological, physical, educational, endocrinological, pediatric and countless other assessments on which his entitlement for special support in Kyiv was based, the UK system insisted that the Ukrainian appraisals weren’t sufficient, and the process should start again.

Having arrived in the middle of March, my son was booked in for an initial assessment on Sept. 19 – in six months’ time! Meanwhile we carried on as best we could but, while we were grateful that he was in school, the lack of specialist support meant that he was in, effect, just filling up his days – although his understanding of English had improved.

As the course of the war had turned, with the Russians having been driven out from Kyiv, and as the English school year came to an end, we decided to come home. So, after a 10-day holiday in the Canaries, we drove back from the UK, arriving back in time for the start of the new school year. My older boy got back into his old school and the younger one was able to return to the kindergarten and pick up on his various therapies – he was happy.

Our new reality

Of course, shortly after our return there was an upsurge in Russia’s attacks on Ukraine’s civil infrastructure, followed by days and weeks of power cuts, and the need to shelter for hours on end as the missiles rained down. That has resulted in stress but of a different type to that our aborted evacuation imposed – especially on our two sons, my wife and, strangely enough, the cat and me too.

Despite the ongoing war, life has proven to be good for us all. The boys have settled in, with the younger one coming on leaps and bounds especially since we got him a therapy dog. We bought another cat to keep our first one company. My wife has started a new business, and I’ve got a new career, here at Kyiv Post. Life’s not perfect and the threat remains but I guess we’re making the “best of a bad job.”