The Russian invasion of Ukraine.Photo: ANDREY BORODULIN/AFP via Getty
Natalia Demishtold NBC Newsin a story published Sunday that she is afraid of what will happen to her son Yuri asRussia’s war against its neighborrages on more than two months after the violence began.
Demish, 40, told NBC News she spent 34 days in hiding with her husband, his children and his parents in Mariupol — a key location in Russia’s invasion strategy and the site of some of the war’s mosthorrific attacks— before absconding in a caravan of cars to Zaporizhzhia, about 140 miles to the northwest.
Yuri, an engineering student, had beensheltering in Mariupolwith his father, Demish told NBC News. Mother and son were unable to communicate before she fled March 29 because much of the city’s infrastructure, including telecommunications and the internet, have been knocked out.
“In the city, there is no heat, electricity or water. All stores are looted. It’s impossible to survive there,” Demish said. “People were ready to go anywhere just to be warm and have food.”
Days later, according to NBC, Yuri wrote to Demish using a messaging app and told his mother, “We are forcibly going to Russia today.”
Damage at Mariupol’s children’s hospital.Evgeniy Maloletka/AP/Shutterstock
“Not knowing where my son was,” Demish, who is now in Dnipro, Ukraine, told NBC News. “It was killing me.”
Ukrainians tell another story.
After more than a week, Demish told NBC News, Yuri called again and said he and the others with him had traveled for three days before arriving in a Russian village almost 700 miles from Mariupol.
“He said they told them that Ukraine never existed as a country,” Demish told NBC News. “When he objected and said history can’t be rewritten, he said two men approached him and he was questioned for two hours.”
Mariupol, Ukraine, in the wake of an attack during the Russian invasion.EyePress News/Shutterstock
During the interrogation, Yuri “was told that he would be recruited into the army in Ukraine if he did, and he would become cannon fodder, but he was now in Russia, a great country,” according to his mom.
Though she wants to return to her home, Demish said she wouldn’t go back to Mariupol until it was liberated from Russian troops. For now, she’s desperately searching for a way to get her son out of Russia, possibly to a third country like Georgia or Turkey.
“I am worried that they will take our Ukrainian men, put Russian uniforms on them, get them into a bus and take them to Ukraine,” Deimsh told NBC News. “I am afraid there will be brainwashing and they will force them to take up arms and they will say, if you want to free up the city, go fight.”
Russia’sattack on Ukrainecontinues after their forces launched a large-scale invasion on Feb. 24 — the first major land conflict in Europe in decades.
More than 5 million have fled the country as refugees — and half are children,according to the United Nations. Millions more, like Demish, have been displaced inside Ukraine.
With NATO forces amassed in the region, various countries are offering aid or military support to the resistance. Ukraine’s PresidentVolodymyr Zelenskyyhas called for peace talks — so far unsuccessful — while urging his country to fight back.
Putin insists Ukraine has historic ties to Russia and he is acting in the best security interests of his country. Zelenskyy vowed not to bend.
source: people.com
