Polina Bashkina: Mothers fleeing with their children will save Ukraine

Polina Bashkina had a plan to stay and fight, but fled to Ireland with her child to survive and, one day, to rebuild Ukraine

Polina Bashkina with her six-year-old son Platon. Picture: Bob Morrison

I was lying face down on the cold ground, covering my ears with my hands and the child with my body: the first bombing of Ukraine started at around 5am on February 24. My elderly mother was lying nearby, preventing our dog, frightened by the explosions, from breaking out and running away. There was a sense of unreality.

Freezing in the meadow, trying to determine the frequency and distance to the next explosion, I remembered how just a couple of days before it started, I had been making plans for the next year. I was taking care of my six-year-old son Platon and preparing him for school. My sewing school was recruiting a new stream of students; I started my own vlog about finding a calling and developed an audiobook project; held presentations of my new book and, as a journalist, wrote articles for the Ukrainian media.

In those days, Ukrainian society was divided into two unequal parts. The first and the majority (including Zelenskyy and his entourage) did not believe the threat of attack was real. Ukrainians lived carefree and happily absorbed video messages from the president, who urged them not to worry and to prepare for barbecues during the May holidays. The president, meanwhile, was actively engaged in strangulation of the freedoms of small businesses, adopting more and more ‘draconian’ decrees, in connection with which his rating was rapidly falling. In general, nothing unusual was happening: over the past eight years, it will sound terrible, everyone had become used to the war with Russia in the east of our country.

On the other hand, I belonged to the minority who were almost certain that the war would happen. Sooner or later, there would be a large-scale attack.

I knew it, because, from early childhood, I had a bitter experience of communicating with relatives from Russia and felt in myself that hatred of Ukrainians was in Russians’ blood. In addition, I worked for 10 years as a political strategist, and the last couple of years I became interested in psychiatry; to me, Putin’s diagnosis is so clear that an invasion was inevitable. That is why, unlike most Ukrainians, I managed to buy enough food and medicine for my mother to last for a few months.

Two weeks before the start of the war, I minimised the risks in business by speeding up my sewing classes to finish them earlier and not to owe money to anyone — neither the students nor the teachers. Everyone was laughing at me behind my back.

Two days before the outbreak of the war, I disgraced myself by carrying the most precious things to my car, to go to a summer house near Kiev, where there was a cellar that could be a bomb shelter for us.

Two minutes before the start of the war, my mother and I stood on the street and listened to Putin ‘live’, realising that it was about to begin. But the brain refused to believe. We both listened with a packed backpack. We thought, in the first days, ‘Mordor’ would cover everything with carpet bombing, and our house is located near the main airport of the country.

When the second history lesson from the Kingdom of Crooked Mirrors was over, we went to the meadow — an open space, as far as possible from buildings, so as not to be under the avalanche. As soon as we stepped from the road to the field, the first explosion thundered, and the second just after. The blast wave patted us on the head. We got up to move away from the houses, but we didn’t get far — we went back to lying down on the ground again.

It wasn’t scary. It was… abstract. I remember I asked: 'What — this is how wars start?' 

Having reached the ditch, we settled there. Platon immediately fell asleep from the stress, but before that he said: “Mom, I want to go home.” 

How should I explain to the child that the house was no longer safe and that for the next couple of nights our home would be an open field?

Two days later, when I stepped out of the dark basement into the store for the first time, I realised: happiness is just walking down a sun-drenched road. Nothing else is needed. Then we had an ice cream sitting on stumps. In that moment there was an explosion. We jumped in surprise. It wasn’t scary. We just wanted to finish our ice cream in the spring sun.

Platon met his first sunrise in the open field after a sleepless night in an attempt to escape the bombardment. And the first ray of light was a symbol of the fact that it is in his strength to end both the second, and the third, and any other war that darkness unleashes.

Possibility of nuclear attack

On nuclear bombing: I spent seven days of the war near Kiev. Putin made a new statement about the possibility of nuclear attack, so we did all the preparations to be ready and to stay as safe as possible. We brought food and water for two weeks because in the case of nuclear bombing it’s prohibited to go out for nine to 14 days. I’ve read that synthetic fabrics will fuse with the skin and the composition of cloth can be determined by igniting it. I chose natural clothing only. Finally, I prepared everything to meet the Russian military, if they wander hungry “at the light”. So, I decided to turn anxiety into action and considered how to get into the territorial defence squad.

On the eighth day, several friends texted me at the same time that I needed to leave Kiev with the child immediately. I had no plans, no connections outside Ukraine, and no money, because I had invested all the money in food and medicines.

Friends didn’t give up. They sent me a website link with free housing throughout Ukraine and the world, they sent me some money and even brought us to the train station. “You have to save the child,” they said.

The child seemed to be doing fine. He said he was not afraid. But each night he cried a couple of times: his dreams were about dead people and rockets that blew up houses. I decided to go.

The second announcement from the top was an invitation from a Polish family. I didn’t even look at other options: I wasn’t choosing a hotel for a holiday — I immediately wrote to the family. Chance chose Ireland for me. But who would have thought that once I was safe, the next crisis awaited me?

In the standard reactions to threat of fight/flight/freeze, I have never been prone to the latter two options. I don’t know how it happened, but I have no self-preservation instinct. It is replaced by the instinct of defending justice.

But the Lord made me a woman. I can give life, but I can’t sacrifice it. I’ve tried both options — and it’s worse safe.

‘Here’ is security, but here I do not feel life, its essence. ‘There’ is danger. But ‘there’ is also meaning.

Having safety, I do not let the life of my country pass through me, and myself, through the country. This is not a feeling of guilt towards those who remained under the bombing. 

This is a personality split between a citizen and a woman, a warrior and a mother.

It took me two whole weeks to understand: my main job now is working for the future of Ukraine, which means looking after my son. Warriors save our today, mothers save our tomorrow.

Thanks to the fact that Ireland opened the doors for Ukrainians and the fact that there are selfless and humane families who help us, this became possible. There are no words to express my gratitude.

I’ll make tomorrow today!

This article was edited on May 16, 2022

• Polina Bashkina is a Ukrainian journalist.