A train from Kiev has just arrived at the station. When women and children – some with stuffed animals under their arms – walk down the platform in the Polish border town of Przemysl, they have to queue up. In that line are mainly Ukrainian men, who just want to go back to their country to fight. Hands in pockets, hats on, some with army bags.
A young man waiting with a group of friends says he is going home. To his parents’ village, west of Kiev. It is still quiet there, but they are already preparing for the advancing Russians. “We will first set up the defense of our cities, it was not there before.” He knows many Ukrainians who do the same.
To win the war, Ukraine needs everyone who can fight and help, President Zelensky has repeatedly said. Thousands of Ukrainians from other countries heed the call. Also in Poland, where the Ukrainian community consists of more than a million people.
Victor is one of them. Normally he is a cook in a restaurant in Warsaw. Now he is standing in line for the train with his girlfriend Olena. They come from Vinnytsia, a city that is still quite far from the front.
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