Safe at last – with thanks to Mail readers – two-year-old Leonel escaped from hell and asked his mother: ‘Is the monster coming?’
The bewildered toddler and his parents crossed from Ukraine into Slovakia yesterday and were welcomed by aid workers funded with donations from Mail Force.
Thanks to our readers’ generosity, they were immediately given essential supplies – and a chocolate bar for Leonel. As the little boy munched on his treat, he seemed to sense the family’s relief to be out of harm’s way.
His mother Olga Legulska answered his question by saying: ‘The monster is not coming any more, sweetheart,’ as she tenderly brushed her fingers through his hair.
She explained that by ‘monster’ he meant the bombs that had rained down on their bombarded home city of Kharkiv. The shocked 30-year-old teacher and her husband Ravil Gaifullin, 31, took their son and a few belongings and set off on an 800-mile journey across Ukraine.
It took them 27 hours by train in a packed carriage to reach the frontier with Slovakia. Last night after crossing over, they were being made comfortable at a reception centre in the border village of Vysne Nemecke.
Sanctuary: Olga Legulska with son Leonel after crossing into Slovakia yesterday
The family is one of thousands to be helped by Eastern European charity People in Need, which is the local partner of CARE International – the UK and global aid organisation receiving £500,000 from Mail Force.
Donations from Mail readers and other benefactors are funding the charity workers who have already set up reception centres and supplies to help desperate Ukrainians as they arrive across the border.
People in Need’s staff and volunteers offer food, blankets, children’s activities and psychological counselling for the mainly women and children who have left everything behind.
Olga told the Mail: ‘Taking into account all the countries that helped us, I think that the people in Britain are our best friends. They are always the first to support us. We are very damaged psychologically because, any noise or sound, we think it is bombs or rockets.
‘It seems to be like a horror movie, to be honest.’
Pictured: People fleeing fighting in Ukraine walk to an evacuation train in Irpin
The young family escaped with just two suitcases of their possessions, along with their son’s pushchair.
‘I don’t know what we are going to do,’ Olga says.
‘Thank god that we have some savings.’ Their future remains uncertain. Yet they are already dreaming of when they can return to their besieged and beloved city of Kharkiv.
‘I hope that we will be able to go back to my city and that our house will still be standing and not in ruins,’ she said. Another refugee in the reception centre yesterday, who gave her name only as Kristina, was offered counselling.
It is here where many Ukrainian mothers can pause for a few hours after fleeing the hell of war. Specialists are on hand to offer ‘psychological first aid’ for those who need it.
Many refugees from the fighting suffer anxiety, depression, or simply struggle to sleep.
Women and children wait to board an evacuation train in Irpin, Kyiv, fleeing fighting
Kristina, 29, fled the capital Kyiv with her six-year-old son Artem, but without her husband or father – who stayed behind to defend their homeland from Vladimir Putin’s slowly advancing Red Army. ‘I still don’t want to believe what’s happened,’ she said. ‘It is like a bad dream.’
She watched the ‘total chaos’ of the first explosions in the Ukrainian capital last week.
‘Just five or six hours later, we had all understood that the war had started,’ the corporate HR manager said.
Kristina headed west to Chernivtsi and then onwards to Svalyava before crossing into Slovakia yesterday morning where she was met by People in Need aid workers.
She is defiant that her country will beat Putin and she will be back home soon.
‘I hope that we are only there for one or two weeks. I am already dreaming of going home. I know my country will be beautiful once again.
For details of ways to donate, go to www.mymail.co.uk/ukraine
‘It is our country, and we will never leave it.’ As she spoke her son, a keen mathematician and swimmer, played with a Slovak volunteer. ‘This is the first playground he has seen for eight days,’ she said. ‘He has already made lots of friends.’ The young mother also praised Britain’s contribution to helping Ukraine in its hour of need. ‘Thank you for everything,’ she said.
Her words were echoed by Jan Ciupa, People In Need’s humanitarian coordinator, who praised Mail readers for their generosity, saying: ‘A huge thank you to everyone for their solidarity and support.’
At the request of Lord and Lady Rothermere, the Mail’s parent company DMGT has donated £500,000.
CARE International was founded in the US in 1945 to send packages of food and basic supplies to millions of people in Europe following the devastation of the Second World War.
CARE International UK – the British arm of the organisation – was founded in 1985.
It has teamed up with People in Need, a charity based in the Czech Republic which is also running convoys of aid trucks into war-torn Ukraine.
For details of ways to donate, go to www.mymail.co.uk/ukraine
Additional reporting: Sam Greenhill
