Latest / INSIGHT TODAY / Why people are rushing to leave Kyiv before winter

Transcript

Why people are rushing to leave Kyiv before winter · INSIGHT TODAY

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Ukraine's capital is under attack around the clock. It's been
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: going on since August. Russia's drone and missile strikes come
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: by day and night. Looks like there's been another attack.
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: More thick black smoke rising over the city. Sometimes Kyiv
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: is on alert for hours on end. People here are
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: used to danger. But this is already the worst period
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: since 2022. Not only that, but the air is getting colder.
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: Winter isn't far off. Everyone remembers last winter. The freezing temperatures,
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: the long nights without electricity or heat, the struggle to
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: survive while Russia attacked the energy grid. So what would
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: you do if your city was under attack and the
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: temperature was dropping? Would you try and stick it out
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: or would you try and escape? And if so, where
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: would you go? We've come here to Kyiv to meet
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: three women trying to figure that out. Irina hasn't decided
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: what to do, but a missile attack has forced her
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: out of her home and her daughter is terrified. Olena
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: is moving to the countryside in search of peace and quiet.
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: And Maria is leaving the country, packing up and taking
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: her children abroad.
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: I don't feel safe in Ukraine in any way. I
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: can't rest.
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: Artur and Kira were born after Russia's full-scale invasion in 2022.
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: The war is all they've ever known. But Maria's never
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: thought of leaving before.
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: Then I thought that I would be the last person
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: who left Ukraine. Because why?
• 1:52
  Speaker 3: How?
• 1:54
  Speaker 4: What is the reason?
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: Life in Kyiv in the past year has given Maria
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: plenty of reasons.
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: Last winter was very difficult in Kyiv. Some weeks and
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: days were really unbearable. What do you take for yourself?
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: Most of all, this winter was not typically cold. We
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: were not even prepared for such temperatures. On the one hand,
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: it was very beautiful, snowy, but those shelling and damage
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: to the energy system, the heating, they just made life
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: in the city unbearable. And in such conditions, you couldn't survive.
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: So I started to think that I don't want to
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: experience another winter like this.
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: When did you decide we're not going to do that again?
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: Everything changed at the end of August, at the beginning
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: of September, when Kyiv began to be shelled all day long.
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: This was the second strike on the 6th of July
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: directly to our hallway. Kyiv is more dangerous now than
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: it's been for ages. Irina says this is where a
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: missile landed in July. Her apartment is on the third floor.
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: The sound must have been incredible.
• 3:31
  Speaker 5: And the shaking, we felt like you can imagine that
• 3:36
  Speaker 5: the whole just jumped and settled again.
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: This is what it looked like immediately afterwards. As we
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: were visiting, we could hear the city's air defence teams
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: trying to shoot down a drone. The new ones fly
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: high and fast, but they seem to have hit something.
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: We should probably head out. For now, Irina and her
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: daughter Polina are living nearby in a rented flat.
• 4:23
  Speaker 5: How do you paint something? No? Do we take a
• 4:27
  Speaker 5: new sheet?
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: Winter is very much on Irina's mind.
• 4:32
  Speaker 4: Sometimes we didn't have heating for weeks. And the temperature
• 4:37
  Speaker 4: inside the apartment was about 0 or 5 Celsius degrees
• 4:43
  Speaker 4: inside the apartment. So being here with a little child
• 4:47
  Speaker 4: that is sick all the time, in these occasions, it's
• 4:51
  Speaker 4: not okay.
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: Green.
• 4:53
  Speaker 5: Green.
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: This one?
• 4:58
  Speaker 5: Pink.
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: Polina is having a good day, but the constant alerts
• 5:02
  Speaker 1: and frequent explosions are taking a toll.
• 5:05
  Speaker 5: First symptoms was she stopped controlling her pee process, but
• 5:14
  Speaker 5: she can't control it, and so she started to cry
• 5:17
  Speaker 5: when she sees that she's peeing.
• 5:21
  Speaker 4: But then was another attack when she just heard explosions.
• 5:27
  Speaker 4: So she started vomiting. Then after a while she started shaking.
• 5:35
  Speaker 4: Completely shaking. I couldn't pacify her.
• 5:40
  Speaker 5: Just hugging her, telling her something. But she was shaking
• 5:44
  Speaker 5: for a pretty long time.
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: Right now, the thing that's pushing you most is... The
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: attacks or the fact that winter is coming?
• 5:55
  Speaker 4: Both, because we understand that the difficult circumstances in Kyiv
• 5:59
  Speaker 4: depend totally on these attacks. And our government says, our
• 6:06
  Speaker 4: president says that it is better to leave Kyiv, because
• 6:11
  Speaker 4: this is target number one.
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: Elena has had enough, but her solution is here in
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: the countryside, just a couple of hours outside Kyiv.
• 6:27
  Speaker 3: I have bought this house because it is little, a little.
• 6:34
  Speaker 3: I can organise everything for normal life.
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: The house is small, it needs a bit of work,
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: but she plans to spend most of the winter here. Today,
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: a new door has arrived. Outside, in the barn, there's
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: plenty of firewood. And in true Ukrainian tradition, a priest
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: has already been round to bless the place. Turns out
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: he's a bit of a handyman, too. You have quite
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: a big garden.
• 7:05
  Speaker 5: Yes.
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: Most of all, it's peaceful.
• 7:08
  Speaker 3: I decided that the better option will be a little
• 7:12
  Speaker 3: village without any factories, any storages and any railway stations.
• 7:19
  Speaker 3: everything that can be Russian's target.
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: So why did you start looking for a place in
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: the countryside?
• 7:30
  Speaker 3: Because I realized that I couldn't spend the winter in Kyiv.
• 7:40
  Speaker 3: If I have several sleepless nights, I feel bad. I
• 7:47
  Speaker 3: can't concentrate. I can't work productively. After several nights here,
• 7:55
  Speaker 3: when I can sleep, just sleep, I feel good.
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: Winter is still a little way off, but Elena has
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: almost got this place ready. And you can see exactly
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: why someone would want to come and spend the winter
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: in a place like this, to sit inside by the fire,
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: and most of all, to feel safe and secure and
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: not be hearing the sound of a drone flying overhead
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: and wondering if it's going to land on your house
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: and never, ever hearing an air raid siren. Back in Kiev,
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: it's more of the same. Sirens, alerts, plumes of smoke
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: on the horizon. Who wouldn't want to escape this? Polls
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: show that as many as 40% of Ukrainians living in
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: cities are actively thinking about what to do if the
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: situation gets worse. It's hard to know how many people
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: will actually do it. They've been through a lot here
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: and they're tough, but it's clearly on people's minds. But
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: Maria is going already. She and the kids are at
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: Kyiv's main railway station, waiting for a train to Vienna.
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: There are air raid alerts, so of course the train
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: is delayed. It's a big adventure for Artur and Kira.
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: They're heading for Egypt. It's cheaper and warmer than Europe
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: and safer than Kiev. But after the winter, Maria isn't
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: sure what will happen. She and her husband, Yuri, know
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: it could be a long separation. The kids seem to
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: know it too.