Elina Konavalyuk and her family have so far had a relaxed, if not indifferent, attitude towards Russia. Some family members even felt nostalgia for the USSR over the years. But no more. Not after months of terrorizing, sleeping in cellars and Konavalyuk, under attack by Russian soldiers who occupied the Kherson region of Ukraine early in the war, her mother and grandparents finally made a dangerous escape from their homeland.
“It was a fight for survival,” she said of living under Russian occupation last winter. The port city of Kherson, just north of Crimea, was the first major city to fall to Russia in the 2022 war. “I don’t have that adrenaline right now. Then all I could think about was stand in line for six hours to slice bread. See my neighbor’s dead body lying outside my house.” It was hard mentally and physically.” I had to learn new skills just to survive. ”
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Last winter and spring, I posted some of what Konavalyuk shared with me during his underground life. In fact, she says Russian border guards checked her phone and interrogated her violently on her way to escape. Her memoir, Survival Diary, reads like a poem describing what it’s like to forget the smell of freshly laundered laundry and the taste of jam.
Konavalyuk is a journalism student. Documenting what was happening in her hometown, teaching herself which blasts corresponded to what types of weapon fire, when to flee, how to deal with the constant noise and bombing all around her. She says knowing how to respond to stress has helped her get through the long … and dreaded months. Now in a safe Europe, she says, it’s hard to see people who weren’t living in wartime enjoying a worry-free life.
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And Friday was a particularly gloomy day for people like Konavalyuk, a Ukrainian Territorial native who just declared Kherson and three other regions together to account for 15% of Ukraine’s territory. . The formal annexation followed what has been widely called an illegal referendum.
“People were forced to vote at gunpoint and were rounded up in the streets. They came to their homes and threatened them,” Konavalyuk said. “So it’s very easy to refute this referendum.” Konavalyuk takes a different view of Ukraine taking back its land, but “the fact that this is seen as an attack on Russia complicates matters.” “It will be more difficult to regain the Kherson region and the rest of the occupied territories.”
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When I asked who would put up the fight and who would take back Kherson, she replied: Whether we come from the South or the West, we are united to give back our land.