By Orin Gordon
FOR Ukrainians, life changed forever on February 24, 2022, when Russian forces launched an unprovoked attack on their country.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has been talking out of both sides of his mouth, talking peace while massing more troops for war and stoking culture clashes with the nations helping Ukraine.
Ukrainian officials, weeks ago, dismissed a ceasefire offered by Putin for the Russian Orthodox Christmas, celebrated early in the new year. It’s like the home invader/burglar you’re in a life and death struggle with calling time out in the middle of your living room.

Putin also made unserious overtures for peace, saying that Ukraine would have to give up Russian-occupied land before the sides could sit down for talks on ending the fighting. That’s like that same home invader promising that he’ll stop attacking your family if you give him the backyard.

For the two young children of Yaroslava, a Ukrainian refugee living in the Portugal capital Lisbon, Christmas was unexpectedly bountiful. The kindness of strangers, recognising that the family had fled the Russian invasion, saw them overwhelmed with presents – more than they could handle.

In a WhatsApp chat we had just before the new year, Slava laughed at the memory of chaotically juggling a video call with her partner, Max, and the nonstop opening of presents by her excited two- and four-year-old children. Max had to stay in Ukraine because of the military conscription of 18- to 60-year-old men. The kids miss him; but sorry dad, Christmas is Christmas.

Slava, a TV sports journalist from Ukraine, was one of several friends I made among the reporter posse at the summer Olympic Games in Beijing in 2008. We stayed in touch, mainly through Facebook. Smart, quick-witted and with unquenchable spirit, she’s crazy about football, and covered UEFA Champions League matches for years.

Shakhtar Donetsk was a regular participant in that competition, as was Dynamo Kyiv in the capital. The city of Donetsk is part of east Ukraine that Russia wants to annex, and the scene of much fighting between Russian and Ukrainian forces.

European football’s national championships, Euro 2012, were held in Poland and Ukraine. From London where I lived, I made it to Poland for matches, but not Ukraine. Our friendship survived this omission.

On February 24 last year, two weeks shy of her daughter’s second birthday, Russian forces invaded Ukraine, upending their lives, perhaps forever. In the panic of those early days, many thought that Putin’s forces would soon subdue and overrun Kyiv. With her young children, Slava boarded a train full of refugees to Poland.

“Two kids, one baby carriage, two backpacks, and one package with a potty”, she told me.

“The potty was the smartest decision. The train to Warsaw took almost 26 hours because of safety reasons.”

Those safety reasons being that trains were vulnerable to air attacks. She showed me a photo of the overcrowded one they took. People had to sit and sleep in the passageways. The children clutched a couple of stuffed toy dinosaurs they’d taken for the journey. Max was later to send them a package with the toys they couldn’t take.

It was in Poland that Slava and her children first experienced the kindness of strangers.

“One man with a child about the same age as my children stopped us, asked if I’m from Ukraine, gave me money, and hugged me”, she recounted.

“This showed me that people could be human beings, and not wild animals that invaded Ukraine. On social media I write about open hearted people I meet. I prefer to cherish kindness.”

That social media presence is austere and unsparing, stripped of the usual glitz and glam of Instagram. I told her that this reminded me of the approach of her country’s President, Volodomyr Zelensky. We are at war, she said. No time for fancy clothes, hair and makeup.

The UN refugee agency UNHCR estimates that 1.5 million of the 7.4 million displaced Ukrainians fled to Poland. Accommodation was tight. Slava said she might have stayed in Warsaw if she’d found a place to live. They lived with two families in the month they spent there. Despite kindness and understanding, it was hard to squeeze in with her two young children.

She had started her outreach and job hunt as early as the train journey to Poland, writing to as many people as she could. A football journalist colleague from Portugal answered and put her in touch with the Portuguese Football Federation. They offered her a job. She accepted on condition that her family would have their own accommodation.

In Portugal, the children took to Portuguese easily, and would surprise her by singing songs in the new language. Slava, herself fluent in Ukrainian, Russian and English, struggled at first. Her job as a TV producer for the football federation in Lisbon can mean taking phone calls from the public.

She told me that she’d sometimes stare at the ringing phone, “scared to pick it up” and make a fool of herself by mangling the language. She swallowed her pride and forced herself to face up to the linguistic challenge without excuses or exceptions. None of this “sorry, I’m a refugee” stuff, she said. Do the job. She did, and it’s easier now.

For Slava and the children in Portugal and Max in Ukraine, several anniversaries loom. In late February, it’ll be one year since the invasion – a year since they hugged each other goodbye. In early March, the girl turns three. She’s lived in three countries in her short life. And late March will mark one year in Portugal.

Orin is a Guyanese-born communications specialist based in Trinidad. He’s at www.oringordon.com