Grieving Ukrainian mother finds refuge in the UK, but little consolation

LONDON (AP) — The small English village that Victoria Kovalenko now calls home is peaceful and sleepy — far from the fighting in Ukraine that killed her family in one horrific, unexpected blow. Her memories are another matter.

“This is a state that I cannot control. Sometimes I feel like everything is ok. Sometimes I cry for no reason,” she told The Associated Press from her home in Kent, southeast England.

“What happened to my husband and daughter will stay with me for the rest of my life,” she added. “It can’t be cured.”

Kovalenko, 34, saw her husband Piotr and 12-year-old daughter Veronika die in northern Ukraine last March when a shell hit their car. Kovalenko survived with her one-year-old baby Varvara, but Russian soldiers held them captive in the school basement for three weeks.

Nearly a year later, Kovalenko has a new temporary home thanks to the kindness of volunteers who helped her cross the border and apply for a UK visa.

Like tens of thousands of other Ukrainians who fled to the UK, she is slowly adjusting to her new life in the UK. Her English is improving day by day. She constantly takes care of Barbara, who is now 2 years old, hobbles around without fear and loves British chocolate. She shares her hideout with her brother, his wife, and their two young girls, who managed to escape unharmed.

But Kovalenko still rolls over when she talks about Piotr and Veronica or looks at their framed pictures by her bed. And every day she dreams of returning to Chernihiv, the city she fled from when the war broke out last February.

After a shell exploded on March 5, 2022, killing Piotr and Veronika, Viktoria Kovalenko and Varvara hid in an abandoned building, but were found the next day by the Russian military, who took them to the gym in the basement of the school. There, the mother and child were kept for 24 days, as well as about 300 people, including two-month-old babies, as well as elderly villagers who later died in captivity.

“It was very crowded, it was always dark and dirty. There was no fresh air at all. People were sick and coughing, some slept on the floor, or on chairs, or even standing against the wall,” Kovalenko recalls. “We can say that we were lucky, because the soldiers who held us were not soldiers who were in Bucha, Irpin or somewhere else, who simply killed everyone in a row.”

The story goes on

When the Russians retreated from the area in early April, Kovalenko made her way and later found her way to the western city of Lvov and then to Poland, where she joined her brother and his family.

It was in Poland that a volunteer approached her and offered her help in seeking asylum in the UK. The volunteer worked with Derek Edwards, a Briton who, shortly after the outbreak of the war, created an organization called Homes for Ukraine to help move dozens of refugees to safe housing in England. Edwards read the AP article about the Kovalenko story and decided to help.

Kovalenko said she knew next to nothing about the UK but decided to go anyway because she thought the move would help her deal with her grief.

“I just wanted something new to keep the circumstances around me constantly changing,” she said. “I thought I could avoid evil thoughts. But that didn’t help much.”

In December, six months after Edwards first applied for a visa, Kovalenko finally arrived in Kent. Edwards took Kovalenko and her relatives from Poland and found her a former priest’s house with the help of church officials. She liked the quiet back streets, the rustic greenery and the old brick houses, the everyday luxuries that the British take for granted.

But all she could think about was returning to her home in Chernihiv. She hopefully said that by the end of the year the war could be over. Then, she says, she will be able to resume therapy, find a job, and start a new life.

“Ukraine alone cannot win this,” Kovalenko said. “If the whole world … gives us more weapons now, then maybe the war will end faster.”

“I hope that by the time I can go to work – when Varvara is older – I will be back in Ukraine,” she added. “Not because I don’t like it here, but because it’s home.”

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