Ukraine feels like a country on the move again this summer, as families forced apart by Russia’s invasion reunite in their homeland or in European Union states providing shelter to more than four million Ukrainian refugees.
Trains and buses criss-crossing Ukraine and connecting it to EU cities and airports are packed, but many reunions abroad are only partial, because most men under 60 are obliged to stay in their homeland for possible conscription into its hard-pressed military.
Dasha Baieva’s summer journey of some 3,500km will take her from Europe’s far east to its far west, as she travels from the frontline city of Zaporizhzhia to Connemara, repeating a voyage she made after Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022.
Baieva’s older sister, Anastasiia Barska, has lived in Connemara since then with her two young children, far from their parents in war-scarred Zaporizhzhia and from her husband in Kyiv, who she sees only on rare visits to a capital city that still faces frequent missile and drone attacks.
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Dasha (18) never wanted to leave Zaporizhzhia, even as Russia bombed it and occupied parts of the surrounding region, but had no choice as a 16-year-old when her parents put her on a train to the relative safety of Lviv in western Ukraine in March 2022.
Anastasiia and her children had fled there on an evacuation train from Kyiv after spending the first week of the full-scale invasion sheltering from Russian air strikes. With no sign of the war abating, she decided the four of them would leave for Poland and fly to Ireland, where a family friend had offered to help them.
After arriving in Dublin they were allocated one room in a hotel in Carna, and a seven-hour bus journey with dozens of other refugees brought them to the village in the Connemara Gaeltacht.
“The things I missed most when I was in Ireland were my parents and grandparents, my house, my friends and my dogs ... We called home every day,” says Dasha, who wants to become a professional dog trainer and, like Anastasiia, speaks fluent English.
“Lots of Ukrainian children started going to the local school but I said no, I would finish my school [online] in Ukraine. I was in my last year and did my exam in summer 2022, so that I would have a chance to go to university in Ukraine.”
Dasha enrolled at an agricultural university in the city of Sumy, just 30km from Ukraine’s northern border with Russia. She did the first year online in Ireland but was determined to return home, despite fierce fighting and air strikes continuing.
“I can’t live without my friends in Ukraine and without my parents. That’s really hard for me. Ireland is like a second home but Ukraine is in my heart,” Dasha says.
“My mother wasn’t happy about me going back and she wanted me to stay in Ireland, but she knows it’s unrealistic to tell me that I can’t do something when I really want to do it. I said I would celebrate my 18th birthday in Ukraine – and I did.”
Dasha arrived in Sumy just as cross-border shelling and drone strikes made it one of the most dangerous regions of Ukraine, but says she could not face missing out on student life at home.
“When I was studying online they would call me from Sumy, and one day they were doing a class on beekeeping. They were all there tasting different honeys and I was in a little box in the corner of the phone. That was really sad,” she says from Zaporizhzhia, where she was preparing to travel to Ireland for the summer holidays.
“I’m so happy now to be near my parents and grandparents and friends again. Even if my friends are in Kyiv I can be there the next day,” she adds. “Sometimes it’s scary here. I remember a night, maybe two weeks ago, when I woke up from explosions that seemed to be above our house. But in 10 minutes I was like, ‘Okay, those f**king Russians, I’m going back to bed again.’ It’s the only way to survive in our country now.”
Anastasiia (30) will not take such risks with her children Melania (6) and Phillip (3).
“I left Ukraine because I felt such big stress about the kids’ safety all the time,” she says. “For the first week [of the full-scale war] when we were in Kyiv, I didn’t sleep or eat because there was such an animal fear – I couldn’t think, I was just trying to survive.
“There were a few months last year when it was really hard in Zaporizhzhia, and civilian houses were being destroyed every night. I woke up with the news and went to bed with the news, and it was really tough,” she recalls.
“I can’t hide from what’s happening because I have lots of friends and family still in Ukraine. But I don’t spend a lot of time reading the news now. I’m not checking it every 20 minutes like I was last year. I realised that it’s not good for my health, because I was worried about something that I couldn’t change.”
The sisters’ mother, Oksana, spent several months in Ireland last year, but Anastasiia has not seen their father, Vadim, since she left Ukraine. Like her husband and most men under 60, he is barred from leaving the country and could be drafted by the military. She says the separation “was really hard, especially at the beginning”.
“The first time we visited Ukraine was September 2022, about half a year after leaving ... It’s important for me and my husband to know we still have a family and to show our children that they still have a mother and father, and we still support each other,” she says.
“It’s not the safest place to go on holiday, of course, but we try to visit every four or five months. We talk to my husband as much as possible online, but often there are power cuts in Kyiv so he has no internet connection.”
Dasha is looking forward to seeing Anastasiia and her children and being with Irish and Ukrainian friends this summer in Ireland, but describes her return to Ukraine as “totally positive”, despite frequent Russian attacks on Zaporizhzhia and Sumy.
At least seven people were killed and 31 injured in a June 29th attack when two missiles hit Vilnyansk, a town 30km from Zaporizhzhia; two children were among the dead and eight were wounded.
“The moment when you hear an explosion is scary,” Dasha says. “It’s sad, but this is the reality now – if you hear the explosion then it’s not for you, so you are lucky.”
Anastasiia, Melania and Phillip have moved out of the hotel in Carna and now live in the nearby fishing village of Kilkieran. The children speak Irish and English and “feel like they have two homes – Ukraine and Ireland,” says Anastasiia, who is thankful for the “huge support” they have received from local people since arriving in the area.
All the same, she wonders about their future every day.
“I have doubts about going back and doubts about staying here. It’s really difficult to make a decision now, because we don’t know what will happen in Ukraine,” she says. “I see my kids are happy and safe here in Ireland, and I’m happy because of that. That is everything I know for now. So we have no plans for the future – we’ll see.”
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