MEDYKA, Poland — He put his job as a structural engineer in Poland on hold, loaded up his Volkswagen Golf with food, gear and sundry supplies, and was on the road back to his homeland — Ukraine, now a battlefield.
“I am going to fight the Russians,” said Oleksandr Zhuk, 55, as he waited behind the steering wheel in a mile-long line of eastbound vehicles in this Polish border town. “I have experience. I have fought them before. I want to be there.”
Since Russia launched its invasion nine days ago, more than 1.3 million Ukrainians have streamed westward into Poland and other Eastern European nations, the largest flow of European refugees since World War II. More than half fleeing Ukraine have come into Poland.
