Platform four or three: at the railway station in Przemyśl, Poland, the fates of hundreds of Ukrainians lie divided. On platform four, families fleeing the Russian bombing of Ukraine get off the carriages, seeking asylum in Europe. At platform three, dozens of Ukrainian men and women are about to board a blue train bound for Odessa, southern Ukraine.
“I have worked and lived in many countries,” says Oksana, 50. “I have lived in Poland and Italy. Ukraine may not be as beautiful as Italy, but it is my country. And I’m not leaving my country at such a difficult time. If all Ukrainians flee the country, who will stay in Ukraine? I see many of my fellow countrypeople around me here, coming from Germany and Poland. Some of them had good jobs. But they left them to return to Ukraine and fight.”
Onboard the trains bound for Ukraine there are also many women who are determined to bring back their children left behind, or who refuse to leave them alone in Ukraine. Tatiana, 49, leaving for Kyiv, says she is ready for anything, even to take up arms.
“We are from central Ukraine and my son left from Poland a few days ago to join the Ukrainian army and fight, and I couldn’t leave him alone,” says Tatiana. “All my relatives are fighting there now. There are little boys who are also helping in the fight. We are united, like partisans, like guerrillas. Even if my children don’t want it, I am ready to take up arms.”
Elena arrived in Poland yesterday after having returned to Kyiv to find and rescue her daughter, 23. Elena, who has been living in Palermo, Italy, for years, recently boarded a flight from Sicily to reach Poland and then Ukraine. The basement apartment in Kyiv where her family lived was destroyed by Russian airstrikes, but her daughter survived.
“When I heard that the war was about to begin, I couldn’t just stand by,” says Elena. “I couldn’t imagine my daughter there alone. So, I took the first flight to Poland and went to Kyiv. When I arrived in the capital, the bombing began. The building destroyed by the bombs was in front of mine. Getting into Ukraine was not difficult. The problem was getting out.”
A German man who had travelled to Kyiv to find his wife, offered Elena and her daughter a ride to the border with Poland, where they joined the tens of thousands of refugees lining up to enter. The mass exodus is causing severe queues at the Poland-Ukraine border, with rows of people and cars reaching back nearly 10 miles and waiting times of 40 hours.
“My eight-year-old daughter has a severe intestinal disease and cannot walk,” says Elena. “Fortunately, we were able to pass thanks to the intervention of doctors and volunteers. Now we are headed to Palermo, safe and sound.”
On platform three, dozens of men aged 20 to 60 smoke nervously in anticipation of the arrival of a train that will take them to Ukraine, where they will join the army fighting Russian troops. Some are wearing civilian clothes, others military garb. Most aim to travel to Kyiv, where a 40-mile convoy of Russian tanks is also headed. Poland’s border guard estimated on Sunday that 22,000 people have crossed from Polish territory into Ukraine since Thursday.
“I lived in Germany and my family stayed behind in Stuttgart,” says a man in his 40s who has just boarded the train. “But I didn’t like watching my fellow citizens fight and die, without doing anything, so I decided to join them. I feel good. I am full of energy. I am already in contact with the armed forces in Kyiv. I can’t wait to join them. I want to go back to Ukraine.”
Also on platform three, Igor, a Dominican friar, is preparing to meet his brothers from Kyiv to lend a hand to the refugees. Next to him is a young man from Georgia who has travelled from his country to help his friends in Ukraine.
“I’m not going to fight,” Igor says, “but if they ask me, I’m ready.”
News is circulating in Przemyśl of mercenaries or war veterans who have arrived from various European countries ready to take up arms with Ukrainian forces against the Russian invaders, after Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskiy issued a call on Sunday to foreign nationals who are “friends of peace and democracy” to travel to the country to fight against the Russian invasion. “Combat tips” and offers to pay for flights have been circulating on a Reddit forum called “VolunteersForUkraine”, where the announcement that Zelenskiy is creating a foreign legion was met with enthusiasm.
According to a 2016 decree, foreigners had the right to join the Ukrainian army for military service on a voluntary basis, Zelenskiy’s statement said. Sunday’s appeal by a sovereign government for foreign reinforcements – reminiscent of international involvement in the Spanish civil war of the 1930s – is unprecedented in modern warfare.
A small but growing number of Ukrainians living in the UK have also made plans to go back to resist the invasion, including veterans of the war with Russia since 2014, community leaders told the Guardian last week.
“Anyone who wants to join the defence of Ukraine, Europe and the world can come and fight side by side with the Ukrainians against the Russian war criminals,’’ said Zelenskiy.
And judging by the movements on platform three, Przemyśl station, many are taking up his invitation.
Sign up for a different view with our Global Dispatch newsletter – a roundup of our top stories from around the world, recommended reads, and thoughts from our team on key development and human rights issues, delivered to your inbox every two weeks:
