'I know you're alive': How Middletown couple raced to save family from Ukraine war

MIDDLETOWN - In late February, the Dvokin family in Kyiv and Halbout family in Middletown were conflicted about whether to believe the images they were seeing of  Russian soldiers slowly encircling Ukraine.

Nathalie Halbout, a retired psychiatric nurse who worked at Riverview Medical Center in Red Bank, grew up in Ukraine during the days of the Soviet Union, where she said became familiar with the brainwashing and lies told by the Kremlin.

When she called her sister’s family to urge them to leave, her brother-in-law put down his foot and said he didn't want anyone to leave.

“When I call him,” Halbout said. “I would hear (Russian TV anchors) talk. ‘It’s just an operation. We’re only going to target military (targets). Don’t worry.’”

Halbout's concern turned out to be valid. The Dvokin family apartment, located on the outskirts of the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv, is only a few miles from Bucha, where within weeks, bodies of residents would be found tied up and executed.

Thousands of miles away across the Atlantic Ocean, the Halbout family worked to get the Dvokin family out of Ukraine.

Alla Dvokina, Halbout’s sister, is wheelchair bound. Her husband Vladimir Dvokin, born a few decades before either sister, is in his 80s.

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Sudden lessons in wartime life

When the fighting began in late February and martial law was declared, routine life-saving tasks became nearly impossible. When Alla and Vladimir's daughter Maiia Dvokina had to get medicine, she would wait four hours just to be told the pharmacy was out of stock.

Public transit was not running, taxis were booked and ride-sharing companies were being bid to astronomical prices.

In Middletown, Nathalie and her husband David Halbout, a furniture maker who works at the Fashion Institute of Technology, were working to secure what should be a short ride from the Dvokin apartment to the train station.

They came across a group of volunteers on the Telegram messaging service offering to pick up residents and drop them off at the train station. But whenever an offer was made, it would quickly close as residents fought for seats.

“Nothing was working anymore. Everybody was trying to run for their lives,” David Halbout said.

He estimated that he and his wife spent three or four sleepless nights on Telegram before someone got them in contact with a taxi driver.

On May 2, Maiia Dvokina and her father made it to the train station. But a portion of the train system was destroyed and all trains were canceled.

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Choosing luggage or people

The next day, Maiia Dvokina returned by herself and she “miraculously boarded the train.”

She said in Russian that they boarded ticket holders first, then families with children and then everyone else.

Luggage was being left on the platform because passengers were being told that “it’s either your luggage or it’s another person who can board the train,” Nathalie Halbout said.

Maiia Dvokina only brought a backpack and she boarded a pitch-black train and entered a cabin with 11 people, one dog and two cats. On a normal trip, a cabin would hold only four people.

“Because there were shellings going on, you couldn’t have any lights on,” Nathalie Halbout said. “You couldn’t even have the cellphone light. … so the Russians wouldn’t spot you and bomb the train.”

She said there were blankets on the windows to hide the passengers.

Every three hours on the dot, Maiia Dvokina would call her aunt.

“So I know you’re alive,” Nathalie Halbout said.

Maiia Dvokina traveled from Kyiv to Rakhiv, then from Rakhiv to Mukachevo. Then she took a bus to the Slovakian border where her brother Matvav Dvokin, who lives in Prague in the neighboring Czech Republic, picked her up.

The total trip took three days.

Then a bomb hit the Dvokins' neighboring apartment building in Kyiv and it partially destroyed their apartment. They had no more windows and there was snow outside.

In Middletown, the Halbout family got in contact with a person who operated a wheelchair compatible minivan who was willing to pick up the remaining Dvokin family and drive them to the Polish border.

At the Polish border, Matvav Dvokin picked up his parents and drove them to Prague.

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Peanut butter company distributes supplies

In the meantime, the Halbout family got into contact with friends who had been part of the Peace Corps in Ukraine. The friends put them in contact with two business owners who own a Ukrainian peanut butter company called TOM or Maslotom.

Taras Fito and Mykhailo Boyko, the founders, have been distributing supplies in Ukraine since the start of the war.

On separate flights to Prague, the Halbout family brought medical supplies to give to Fito and Boyko. The supplies were bought with donations from friends and customers as well as the Halbout family's own savings that were originally marked for home repairs.

David Halbout estimated that on his second trip he brought four bags of donated aid that weighed about 70 pounds each.

He said they are working with on-the-ground distributors because he said the larger aid groups are not going into certain areas. “There was a lot of humanitarian aid that was stuck in the city or not really going to the front line where it was absolutely needed.”

He said within four days of dropping off the supplies with the two businessmen, “it was in the hands of the medics.”

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What are they doing now?

Maiia Dvokina came to the U.S. with the Halbout family. She is in the process of applying for Temporary Protected Status, but due to the volume of applications, she has not received an interview date yet.

The Halbout family is still collecting aid to make first aid kits that Ukrainian soldiers can carry with them. They said it was an ongoing effort because medical supplies are single-use items.

David Halbout wrote in an email, "Now since the war has been going on for two months, the people got used to the war and donations are very slow to come."

He added, "If forgoing some extra things in our lives can help to save lives and protect the sovereignty of Ukraine I’m prepared to pay for it myself. Because Ukraine cannot lose, democracy cannot lose."

They also asked that people send monetary donations because of the proliferation of counterfeit medical supplies.

David Halbout said they only buy tourniquets directly from North American Rescue after spending $60 on a poorly stitched imitation found on Amazon that copied the brand, logo, photos and description of a genuine NAR tourniquet.

The Halbouts, who are both textile artists, said the stitching of the counterfeit tourniquet was poor and the band holding the rod was of a weaker material in the fake product.

David Halbout said Ukrainian volunteers have begun to recognize which tourniquets would actually hold in the event someone was bleeding to death. However, he said, people donating supplies may not be aware of the quality of their purchases.

“What we send is all genuine and all very good quality that would save life,” David Halbout said.

Nathalie Halbout has been writing to Amazon to petition against the selling of counterfeit products.

In a May 10 letter, she wrote, “In the USA there is a large Ukrainian grassroots network of people who try to bring the medical supplies as quickly as possible. Like us, they do fundraisers and spend their own funds to pack suitcases with lifesaving medical supplies and then simply board planes for Warsaw with dozens of bags as excess luggage. Each 50-pound bag costs between $110 and $140 in baggage fees.”

Nathalie Halbout said her wish is that Amazon remove all counterfeit medical supplies labeled as genuine.

"Our hearts are bleeding when we hear that there's another city that's attacked or there's more people, more casualties," David Halbout said.

For more information, David Halbout can be reached at 732-403-0400 or frenchfixllc@gmail.com.

Olivia Liu is a reporter covering transportation, Red Bank and western Monmouth County. She can be reached at oliu@gannett.com. 

This article originally appeared on Asbury Park Press: Russia-Ukraine war: Middletown NJ couple saved family, send supplies