The women fleeing Ukraine
Business Daily
BBC
4.4 • 796 Ratings
🗓️ 22 March 2022
⏱️ 17 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Two young women recall how they fled the Russian invasion of their homeland, and discuss their hopes and dreams for the future.
Alexandra from Kyiv tells Tamasin Ford how she had to say goodbye to her parents at the packed Polish border, and now suffers survivor's guilt, living in the safety of Berlin. Meanwhile Elena recalls the first explosions of the war, and describes how she now finds herself the sole breadwinner for her family, living in exile in Warsaw.
Producers: Sarah Treanor and Tom Kavanagh
(Picture: Refugees from Ukraine at the Medyka border crossing with Poland; Credit: Louisa Gouliamaki/AFP via Getty Images)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | to say goodbye to my mom it was um i mean like it was the moment that i never imagined in my life |
| 0:09.0 | to be happening when i knew that i have to say goodbye and i have to pretend that everything's going to be |
| 0:17.3 | okay but when i knew no it's not going to be okay. But when I knew, no, it's not going to be okay. And still for now, every |
| 0:26.1 | day, I kind of wake up hoping that one week from now or so this will end and this is just a temporary |
| 0:32.4 | nightmare and we will wake up from it. Yeah, and I don't allow myself to think in the long term. |
| 0:38.0 | It's too scary and it's too overwhelming. |
| 0:41.1 | This is the tale of two young women |
| 0:43.6 | who had to flee their homes |
| 0:45.4 | as bombs rained down on their cities in Ukraine. |
| 1:08.4 | Okay. Alexander and Elena, both 27 years old, are now safe, taking refuge in neighbouring countries. |
| 1:13.4 | But instead of focusing on their careers or partners or dreams for the future like any other 20-something-year-old, they're living in limbo, unable to move forward with |
| 1:20.3 | their lives and careers transfixed by what's happening to their families in Ukraine. |
| 1:27.1 | I'm Tamerson Ford and in today's Business Daily from the BBC, |
| 1:31.6 | we take a look at what it's like to be young and fleeing war. |
| 1:37.7 | My name is Alexandra. I'm originally from Kiev, Ukraine. |
| 1:42.2 | Alexandra moved to Berlin in 2012 for her studies. |
| 1:46.4 | She ended up getting a job and stayed. |
| 1:49.2 | But when tensions between Russia and Ukraine got worse, |
| 1:52.7 | she began to worry about her parents, |
| 1:55.0 | so flew home to visit them on the 18th of February. |
| 1:58.3 | I did think at that moment that nobody's going to attack anyone. |
| 2:02.6 | It's just going to be a huge pressure on Ukraine, most likely on the European Union as well, but not the invasion. |
... |
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