‘I give up everything and leave’: Ukrainians flee Russian advance

“He said, ‘Get out now.’ And that’s all the time he has to speak,” said Mr. Kalashnik. “We haven’t heard from him since.”

Just over a few hours on the road, he said, he was stunned by the swift military action that seemed to be reshaping his country, minute by minute.

“Even while we were driving, a lot of things changed,” he said.

Along the way, he said, he called his grandmother who lives near the Russian border south of Kharkiv, an eastern Ukrainian city that was partially besieged on Thursday. The Russian soldiers arrived, he said she told him, adding, “There’s a tank in my garden.”

Danyliuk, a 65-year-old retiree, and her husband, Bogdan, live in Shchastya, a town along the border that separates government territory from a breakaway region in eastern Ukraine, where she is an active volunteer. in a children’s theater group. . She also woke up on Thursday after a bombardment.

She said in a phone interview on the road. “I was afraid to turn on the light. I decided to take a shower, while I had the chance. We have packed documents. But I don’t bring family photos. They come in a large box. There will be no room for them. “

She said she later regretted that decision. In the end, she took another spare tire.

“I should have gone yesterday,” she said. “Today, I gave up everything and left.”

She plans to stay with her son in Kyiv, although he lives in a one-room apartment, but she also understands Kyiv is not safe either. Before leaving, she and her husband scattered some food on the ground for their chickens, then released the birds to roam – perhaps, into the streets to fight.