'Bombs, bombs, bombs': Ukrainian refugees describe harrowing journey to Poland

MEDYKA, on the Ukraine-Poland border — For the second time in less than a decade, Europe is on the front lines of a major refugee crisis and facing chaotic scenes of dislocation, impassable crowds, overflowing trains and a seemingly endless supply of vulnerable and exhausted women, children and older adults carrying all they can to temporary destinations and unknown futures.

"Bombs, bombs, bombs" is how 6-year-old Damir Khrdsova, newly arrived in Poland, described his five-day journey by car from southeastern Ukraine. One bridge he crossed was destroyed 10 minutes after his grandparents crossed it.

Russian President Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine, which began a week ago, has unleashed this nightmarish moment in a country that only a few weeks ago was largely shrugging off the likelihood of a full-scale assault by Moscow.

Now, as Russian paratroopers lay siege to Ukraine's cities, air-raid sirens sound day and night and Putin's shelling and bombing attacks in civilian areas seem poised to intensify, more than 1 million Ukrainians and other nationals have fled to neighboring countries such as Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, Moldova and Romania, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.

The UNHCR has warned the situation may become Europe's largest refugee crisis this century, surpassing the 1.3 million people who traveled to the continent to request asylum in 2015 as conflicts raged in the Middle East.

Then, like now, the personal stories of those fleeing are filled with anguish: Families torn apart. Daughters having to choose between saving their parents or their own children. Kids clutching blankets and teddy bears and wearing expressions that suggest they aren't sure if they're on their way to the park or a destination half a world away.

"I really don't know what we're going to do now. We have little money and no place to stay," Viktoria Bondareva, 31, said Wednesday, minutes after she stepped off a train in Przemysl, a small city in eastern Poland that has become a kind of staging post for those fleeing fighting that is now raging in Ukraine's north, east and south.

Traveling with Bondareva was her daughter, 3, and son, 9. The 3-year-old's Peppa Pig-themed backpack was mostly filled with food. There was little time to grab clothes when they left Nikopol, about 375 miles southeast of Kyiv. They evacuated as fighting erupted a few days ago on Nikopol's outskirts. The kids' father stayed behind to help defend the city.

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Przemysl train station, which serves a population of about 60,000, was awash with confused, tired and anxious arrivals from all corners of Ukraine.

Mothers and children slept on cots, clinging to each other, while other children played. Some women could be seen crying as they rushed back and forth along the main platform or shuffled among waiting rooms.

Many arrivals were greeted by volunteers from aid organizations who gave out bags of bread and ladled mushroom soup into small bowls. Some travelers carried small dogs wrapped in blankets or zipped up into their coats.

“Look at my juice! I have two juices!” a 5-year-old boy named Nic exclaimed to his father, who declined to give the family’s surname out of concern for their safety.

Oleksii, the boy's father, is a financier who fled Ukraine's capital Tuesday with his wife, Nic and their two other children, ages 6 and 13. Before leaving, they sheltered in the bathroom of their home on the outskirts of the city, as they saw the fire and flare from rockets fly right over them.

After settling his wife and children with Ukrainian friends who live in Poland, Oleksii intends to return to Kyiv to help the Ukrainian resistance. He has no military training but plans to help the war effort other ways.

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Olena Lozhechnikova, 44, had to choose between her mother and daughter.

"I had to leave my mother behind," she said tearing up as she reflected on her wrenching decision. Her 74-year-old mother stayed behind in Kryvyi Rih in southern Ukraine.

Lozhechnikova's daughter Ksenia is 11. She stared off into the distance and sucked on a lollipop as her mother spoke with USA TODAY. Her mother said Ksenia had been crying because of all the upheaval, and she herself couldn't think straight, didn't know what would happen to the apartment she left behind and had no idea what they would do next.

Late Wednesday, illustrating the chaos, there was a brief panic as Polish police initially said a baby and a 4-year-old who had just arrived in Ukraine had gone missing at Przemysl train station, halting all trains. It turned out to be a false alarm.

'I am in Poland now but my mind is back home'

By the end of 2016, more than 5 million refugees and economic migrants reached European shores after undertaking perilous journeys from Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq and other Middle Eastern countries fragmented by war and persecution, according to the UNHCR.

Many linger in camps in Turkey. Others were absorbed into European economies and beyond. Some died along the way or were returned, either forcibly or on their own accord. Then, countries such as Poland and Hungary, whose governments have won support through anti-immigration policies, were among those nations most resistant to opening their borders to refugees from war zones in predominantly Muslim-majority countries.

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One family from Afghanistan who had been seeking asylum in Ukraine following the August takeover by the Taliban was forced to flee that adopted homeland when Russia's invasion began. They were denied entry into Poland at the border several times over the past few days, despite assurances from Polish authorities that people fleeing Ukraine would be let in, no matter where they are from. They got in Wednesday on the third try.

As Russia's invasion of Ukraine has intensified, what started as a trickle of Ukrainian refugees grew to a steady stream and now risks turning into a flood. The U.N. has appealed for $2 billion for a relief operation that it estimates could see 4 million or more Ukrainians pour into neighboring countries in eastern Europe.

"In the cities and streets of Ukraine today, innocent civilians are bearing witness to our Age of Impunity," said David Miliband, president and CEO of the International Rescue Committee aid organization.

"The fact that 1 million refugees have already been forced to flee is a grim testament to barbaric military tactics taking aim at homes and hospitals.”

"It's very painful for all Ukrainians to understand what is happening right now," said Violeta Khrdsova, 30, who son Damir told USA TODAY about the "bombs" he saw on his escape ride from Ukraine. "Physically I am in Poland now but my mind is back home."

'I can't hide behind the children and my wife'

Inside Ukraine there have been reports of desperate scenes at train stations as large crowds try to force their way onto trains leaving the country. Fathers wiping away tears as they say goodbye to small children they are not sure they will ever see again. Long lines of cars have formed on Ukraine's side of the border, with wait times in freezing weather varying from several hours to three days, according to border guards.

At the main border crossing between Poland and Ukraine on Wednesday, the atmosphere was somewhat low-key. Volunteers handed out sandwiches. A motley crew of lesser-known humanitarian aid organizations huddled in tents where they collected clothes and shoes.

One Polish man carried a tray of hot coffees to cars waiting in line to get into Ukraine. Sitting nearby in his black sedan, Maksym Loukianetz, a Ukrainian living in Poland, was heading home to fight after President Volodymyr Zelenskyy this week called for men from his country and around Europe to join the Ukrainian army.

"See, what has been going on? Who will defend the country?” he said. “I will. I can't hide behind the children and my wife. I have to go."

Elsewhere, piles of trash with discarded food and blankets lined the ditch along the road. Polish volunteers began picking it up and putting it into trash bags. One entrepreneur, thinking he spotted a gap in the market, was selling dog and cat food.

Guards milled about. Assembled media stood around filming the horizon, themselves and the handful of people who crossed the border on foot into Poland over a period of about three hours.

Olga and Anatoly Scherbak, an elderly couple, were among those making the journey.

Olga, a 75-year-old college music teacher, was more talkative than her husband. He worked for years at the International Red Cross in Kyiv. Amid the Russian assault, he called his old employer, reintroduced himself, and asked if the group could help the couple evacuate.

Five minutes later, Olga said, they were rolling toward the border in a bus, on their way to live with a son in Estonia.

How did they feel about leaving everything behind?

"What can we feel?" she said. "We have lived in Kyiv all our lives."

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Harrowing stories of Ukrainian refugees fleeing Russian invasion