“This is genocide, the fucking Russian soldiers killed my two nephews! They were 3 and 15 years old! Please let Europe stop this massacre!”
It is the desperate voice of Elena Klymenko, 38-year-old woman I met upon arrival in Kyiv less than two weeks ago, with whom I had a chilling phone conversation this morning. And whose story I write now to continue telling this increasingly tragic, inexplicable, cruel, frightening war.
I met Elena on the Ryanair flight that took me from Rome to Kyiv on February 23 last. as i told in my first note of this coverage, in which I described her Gucci bag, her iPhone watch on her wrist – her elegance – Elena was returning with a friend from a long weekend vacation in Rome planned long before, when they had found extremely cheap tickets. A weekend in Rome that had turned into a nightmare for both of them due to the winds of war that had already begun to blow stronger than ever on Monday, February 21, when Vladimir Putin announced the decision to recognize the independence of the self-proclaimed separatist republics of the Donbass region, in the southeast, in an aggressive speech in which he accused the ukrainian President, Volodimir Zelensky, of being a puppet of the West. It was the pretext that he later used to launch the total invasion and the bombs.
As she was very kind, friendly and gave me a first glimpse of the situation, with Elena, who was sitting next to me, we exchanged telephone contacts. In addition, as he spoke perfect Italian because in his childhood he had been part of the so-called “Chernobyl boys” whom many Italian families invited to spend a month of vacation during the summer, he even offered to accompany me the next day for a tour of Kyiv, acting as interpreter.
The plan of course changed abruptly because hours later, In the early hours of February 24, the air raid alarm sirens began to sound, The bombs began to fall and the great exodus from Kyiv began, with traffic jams on all the highways.
“I can’t go to your hotel,” Elena wrote to me that morning on WhatsApp, who by audio – with a very agitated voice – told me that she had spent two hours trying to fill up with gasoline but that she hadn’t succeeded. She also sent me photos taken from the window of her apartment, with neighbors carrying suitcases to escape from Kyiv and collapsing the elevator in her building.
as Elena has an 11-year-old son, Kirill, who to take care of, I thought it was better to leave her alone.
Days later, I contacted her once more via WhatsApp, to ask her how she was. With a relieved voice and despite the fact that she had told me at the beginning that she was not going to leave Ukraine in case of war because she was not going to leave her parents, now older than her, Elena gave me the great news that she was already she was safe and sound in Italyin a town on Lago di Como, with his son. His escape from Kyiv had been very hard, but he had managed it.
Flight from Ukraine
“After spending the whole day at home, on the 24th, and one night in the catacombs, as the shelter called it, with my son who was trembling and me who was crying, the next day we wanted to leave the catacombs, but we mightn’t because they were bombing. And we made the decision to leave in 5 seconds, really, 5 seconds.” counted.
“I grabbed a backpack, put money, documents, pajamas, a change of clothes and nothing else. And we ran away. My ex-husband, Kirill’s father, accompanied us to the border. And since it was not possible, and it is not possible now, to escape with the car because there was a 24-hour queue to cross, in the end we decided to reach the border with Moldova on foot, walking”, he recounted. Had he taken photos of that escape on foot? “No, at that time she was crying.”
Elena later recounted that on the other side of the border she found several “angels”: “A lot of people helped us, they opened the doors of their houses, they fed us, and they took us to Chisinau, the capital of Moldova… They organized a transport for us to Iasi, a Romanian city where there is an airport, and there we bought the plane tickets. plane and we flew to Italy.” He also sent me the photo of the article that a local newspaper had written regarding his odyssey to escape, the video of an interview that he had given to Italian TV: she had become one of the first Ukrainian refugees to arrive in Italy. Now there are regarding 17,000.
He was going to write his happy ending story. But the hard and raw events of the following days dictated another agenda. Yesterday followingnoon, I sent him a new WhatsApp to tell him that I had finally left Kyiv, that I was in Romania and regarding to travel to Warsaw to re-enter Ukraine. And to ask how everything was going for her in Italy. What news did she have regarding her parents in Kyiv and how was her little son.
“I’m in the shit. They killed my nephews.” he answered, leaving me cold. And this exchange of messages followed:
-What?
-Yes, they killed my two nephews.
-You can talk?
-I don’t want to, excuse me, I can’t even breathe.
-I imagine, I don’t know what to tell you… I have goosebumps. But you have to tell this, Elena. How old were they?
-3 and 15 years old, it was in Bucha, north of Kyiv.
-My goodness. When was she? Were they children of any of your brothers?
-No, children of my cousin. Sorry I can’t right now.
-I don’t know how, but count on me if I can help with anything. I was also shocked, but this must be told, this massacre must be denounced. When you get your strength back please give me details, that’s how we denounce it.
-Ok.
Then I sent him three emojis: the one with the two praying hands, the one with a broken heart and the one with a bent arm straining. And she sent me a minute of a video in which she was denouncing what happened on Italian TV. “Well, let’s tell this to the world. Strength”, I encouraged her.
horror details
This morning I finally managed to talk to Elena, who gave me details of the horror. She told me that everything happened on March 4. Her cousin Natasha and her husband were escaping by car from the city of Bucha, north of Kyiv, along with their three children: Andre, 15, Mihail, 13, and Nicola, 3.
“There were five in the car and the damn Russians started shooting with machine guns. Only one of the boys, Mihail, survived. My cousin and her husband are now in the hospital, injured. And the only boy alive meets people we don’t know… I fainted when my mom called me to tell me. I think they were the first guys they killed,” she says.
How is your son, did he hear regarding the death of his cousins? “Yes. And it worries me because when I told him he had no reaction. She didn’t cry. She pretended nothing had happened, which is much worse.“, answer.
How are your parents, Olga and Mihail? “They are in a dacha outside Kiev, near Borispol, they cannot go out because they are both over 70 years old… My dad, in addition to having covid, has cancer, he cannot move. I tried to call my mom for International Women’s Day, but so far I mightn’t. Surely in a few days they will remove all connections in Kyiv, they will close all entrances and exits and they will starve, as in the Second World War”, bill.
“I don’t know what to tell you, psychologically I can’t believe that everything that is happening is true. It is a genocide, something never seen before!”, she cries.
“That is why I ask the whole of Europe for help to stop this war, because we have already paid too much, no one talks regarding the apartments we have left, our things, we are talking regarding too heavy victims, we are talking regarding children!” he shouts.
help for refugees
A warrior like the rest of the Ukrainians who, despite the catastrophe, resist, Elena is now full working in Monza, on the outskirts of Milan, to help all the Ukrainian children and mothers who are arriving by bus from their country, part of those two million total refugees who have fled the war so far. “They need everything. That is why I ask you, please, if at the end of your article you can put the bank address so that people can send help, collaborate”, Elena begs.
I tell him that of course, yes, but I warn him just in case that there is a serious economic situation in Argentina: “It doesn’t matter, even if people donate 1 or 2 euros, everything is useful for our people.”
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