At 6 in the morning in Russia, Vladimir Putin actually ordered the invasion of Ukraine ( UPDATES ), announcing the start of what he called a "special military operation to protect Donbass". A sudden escalation that shocked the large Ukrainian community in Italy, which in 2020 numbered over 230 thousand people.
"I don't know how I can hold back the tears", tells the Sardinian Union Yanina Haras, born in Vyzhnytsia, in the western part of Ukraine, 31 years of which 17 spent in Fondi, in the province of Latina, where she lives with an Italian and her baby grows up. In Ukraine, however, he left the whole family as well as a piece of his heart.
The first thing she did this morning, when the media around the world filled with images of tanks and explosions, was to call her sister-in-law and aunt, who live in Cherson, near Crimea, in one of the areas affected by the Russian army. “At 5.30 in the morning the bombing began, they felt everything was shaking. They fled to a shelter, while my aunt ran away a piece of wall collapsed on her. She was injured, she was taken to the hospital. Now they don't have the courage to go home. The streets are full of tanks, the skies of planes. It is a war scenario ”.
In the capital Kiev, on the other hand, their father, grandfather and other cousins live: "They are terrified, the city is militarized." For now they remain there but thousands of people are trying to leave the city by clogging the streets and petrol stations. Martial law has been in force since this morning while the Ministry of Defense has called the civilian population to arms.
The fear is that communications could be interrupted at any moment: “A few hours ago the power was disconnected and so was the possibility of accessing the Internet. Total darkness, panic. Now the electricity is back, but who can say for how long ”. Helping loved ones in Ukraine is difficult: “I asked if they needed food, reinforcements”. But this is a question that absolutely nothing can follow: all civilian flights have been canceled because they are at risk of killing, and airspace has also been blocked for commercial flights. “We just have to pray, hope that Putin will stop. But it is difficult that he will do it: it is clear that he wants war, for reasons that I personally have not yet understood ".
THE TALE FROM MOSCOW - Not even Inna Yacobson, 28, a Russian architect, originally from Volgograd but living in Moscow, did not understand. In love with Italy, she had a study experience of about a year in Sicily, and it is thanks to her perfect knowledge of Italian that she can tell what is happening in the Russian capital.
"My architecture studio is right next to the Kremlin. For hours, the police sirens have been sounding, continuously". Even in Moscow "the situation is very difficult" and there is concern.
The invasion of Ukraine is news "that I expected but that makes me ashamed". “Why do we attack? I do not understand. None of the people I know want this war, nobody thinks it is fair and that Ukraine is threatening us. Our president Vladimir Putin seems to have gone mad ”.
Yet the sense of helplessness is maximum: “It seems to us that we cannot do anything. Even the most peaceful demonstrations here in Russia end in blood, with violent police charges and arrests ”. Protests against the war in Ukraine were virtually banned in Moscow. And even if several people took to the streets to stage individual "demonstrations", they were nevertheless stopped by the police: "There is no democracy in this country - says Inna -. People decide nothing. It is difficult to live here ”.
The situation, from his point of view, has worsened since the 2014 invasion of Crimea: “Russia has proven that it is no longer as strong as it once was. Just look at the state of hospitals, schools and universities: it is very bad ”.
The paradox is that the Russians also have many relatives in Ukraine, so they see their soldiers attacking brothers, uncles, cousins: “Each of us, at least among my friends and work colleagues, has a relative in Ukraine. I have an aunt in Odessa, another city where there were strong explosions today. I heard her, she's fine. But we are afraid for all of them ”.
