Carrying children and pets, Ukrainians flee to Poland to escape Russian bombardment

Hari Sreenivasan:

The United Nations high commissioner for refugees, or UNHCR, said today that by this weekend, an estimated 1.5 million Ukrainians will have fled their country. It's one of the largest refugee crises in Europe in recent history.

NewsHour Weekend Special Correspondent Simon Ostrovsky is in Poland and he spoke with recent refugees as they arrived from Ukraine.

Simon Ostrovsky:

This usually quiet corner of rural southeastern Poland has been turned into a bustling hub for refugees from Ukraine looking for shelter and safety in neighboring countries.

Thousands of people continue to stream into this train station on the Polish side of the border as the Ukrainian capital Kyiv continues to be bombarded by Russian forces. We've heard horror stories from passengers who are arriving here, of overcrowded trains, with standing room only, sometimes standing for 10, 15, even 24 hours, just to get out of the country.

They come with what little they can carry: warm clothing, a few basic belongings, heirlooms. Some are even carrying pets. They are met by dozens of Polish volunteers who have mobilized to help with food, shelter and transport onwards to cities across Europe in what the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees called one of the most rapid exoduses ever seen.

Maryna Kaftan and her daughter Daryna managed to squeeze onto a train on the seventh day of the Russian invasion, as air raid sirens blared sending passengers into a panic on the railway platform in Kyiv.

Maryna Kaftan:

It was very crowded, very nervous. People were like, storming the train. So we just ran with the kids and jam ourselves inside the train.

A lot of people were standing for ten hours. So we had one seat and this luggage piece and there were four of us and we were just sort of changing. It was difficult.

Simon Ostrovsky:

You were taking turns sitting down?

Maryna Kaftan:

Yes. I'm furious. Very angry. They are destroying our country. They are destroying our culture for 400 years. They just cannot stop. I feel awful that I am here, and not firing, but I'm not a soldier. I don't know what can I do right now. So I'm just saving all I can, my parents, my daughter, my cat.

Simon Ostrovsky:

The scale of this crisis is unprecedented. When the war in Syria was at its worst, it was three months before the number of refugees reached the number this war in Ukraine has produced in a week, according to the UNHCR. Half of them are children, per UNICEF, all fleeing the seemingly indiscriminate bombardment of civilian areas by Russian forces.

Zuza Kraus:

You can really see that they need help.

Simon Ostrovsky:

Zuza Kraus is a volunteer from a local scout troop. Poles have set up assistance points like this one in cities across the country.

Zuza Kraus:

Sometimes they just say that they're super hungry. Sometimes you can see that they're rubbing their hands cause it's cold for them.

You can see crying babies that don't have blankets. Sometimes they are like shy to ask for help. So we go around, we say, like, it's OK. We do it for free, we do it for you and everything.

Simon Ostrovsky:

Valeriya Litvin has just come across the border by foot with her mother and sister.

Valeriya Litvin:

In my neighborhood, it was, uh, like, um, being more and more loud. And the last latest four day, actually, four days I spent in the bomb shelter. I keep telling myself that I should believe that this conflict, this war will end in the nearest future.

Simon Ostrovsky:

In the meantime, they plan to head to Warsaw to stay temporarily with friends.

Valeriya Litvin:

We are going to see whether we can somehow earn our money here, or what should we do next, because we are now at a loss, actually, with this situation and with our being abroad.

Simon Ostrovsky:

No one knows when it will be safe to return. I asked Litvin if she thought going back would even be possible in the event of a Russian takeover of the Ukrainian capital.

Valeriya Litvin:

No, I would rather, I would rather struggle from someplace else with them because the regime, they are completely—well, they stand apart from all the democratic values, that you know and I know. It's the regime that suffocates its citizens. It's like going back into the USSR. And the USSR is in its worst form with the total deficit, total propaganda, total brainwash.

Simon Ostrovsky:

Not every Ukrainian at the train station is seeking to flee Ukraine.

Simon Ostrovsky:

There's an extraordinarily long line of people waiting to get on a train that's actually going back into Ukraine, and a lot of them are men of military age. They know that if they go back inside, they won't be able to get out because the Ukrainian authorities are stopping men from the ages of 18 to 60 from exiting the country.

Simon Ostrovsky:

Yaroslav Filimonov is an HR manager who was traveling abroad when fighting broke out in his home city.

 Yaroslav Filimonov:

I left my family in Ukraine. I was on a business trip in Dubai, so I should come back. First, it's my family. And the second, it's my country. My country is on fire now, so I should be there. No one except us. That's the reason.

Simon Ostrovsky:

So you are ready to fight?

Yaroslav Filimonov:

Of course. Everyone in Ukraine ready to fight. There are no any flowers for occupants. There are just cocktails like cocktails, Molotov, just fire. Nothing else.

Simon Ostrovsky:

So many people are leaving Ukraine right now. Why don't you want your wife and daughters to leave, too?

Yaroslav Filimonov:

Ukraine is our country. It's our homeland. We should be there and we should fight. We should fight against Russia. We should then, we should rebuild our country, our city and there no any choices.