A YOUNG Ukrainian woman now working as an interpreter in York has spoken for the first time in public about the three terrifying weeks she and her teenage daughter spent trapped in an area of Ukraine under Russian occupation.
Svitlana Kuchar and her daughter Sofiia, 13, originally from Kyiv, had gone to visit her 78-year-old mother Anna in the small town of Dymer, just 14 kilometres from Kyiv across the wide River Dnipro.
But while they were there, the bridge across the river was blown up to halt the Russian advance on the capital city.
Svitlana, Sofiia and Anna found themselves trapped in Russian-occupied territory.
At one point, out of the kitchen window, they saw a column of Russian military vehicles passing.
"They looked so angry, so terrible," Svitlana said.
Thankfully, no Russian infantry entered the small town. "Thank God!" Svitlana said.
Nevertheless, they were without power, without food, without medicines, and unable to go out for fear of bombs.
"It was so dangerous!" Svitlana said. "We were so frightened!"
Eventually, after three weeks, Svitlana, who was widowed four years ago, managed to charge her phone just enough to make a call to her brother Sergiy in Kyiv.
She had to go into some nearby forest to get a connection.
He and his family had been going mad with worry. "He said 'leave! Take your documents, and leave!'" Svitlana said.
The three of them did just that. Leaving the car, because driving was too dangerous, they walked to the Dnipro River.
The bridge had been destroyed, but a makeshift footbridge had been put up in its place. They managed to make their way across - to Ukrainian-occupied territory on the other side. "It was two hours, but it was like half my life," Svitlana said.
Back in Kyiv, Sergiy took Svitlana and Sofiia to the railway station and put them on an evacuation train.
The journey to the Polish border took two days and two nights, with frequent stops and starts and changes of train.
Svitlana had a childhood friend, Victoria Allam, living with her English husband in Selby.
Eventually, she and her daughter were able to go and live with them, before charity York City of Sanctuary found them a small flat just off Skeldergate.
Sofiia is now hoping to go to All Saints School nect term, while Svitlana has two jobs - as a sales assistant at the York Designer Outlet, and as an interpreter for the city council and York City of sanctuary.
But her old life in Ukraine is gone.
Before the war, she worked as assistant to the general manager of a large Ukrainian oil and gas company. "But now, everything is broken," she said.
At least her mum Anna has been able to return to her home in Dymer. She insisted on doing so as soon as the Russians pulled back from Kyiv.
"She said 'I have a garden. I need to go home!'" Svitlana said.
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