‘We Have to Start Our Lives From A New Page’: The Young Women’s Dreams Being Destroyed By Putin’s War

Between fear and the future, Chris York reports from Poland about how the Russian President has upended so many Ukrainian lives

“We really had a cool life. We had a flat, a couple of cars. My boyfriend was a director, a really good job. And now I’m expected to be a cleaning lady for zł1,000 (£178) a month.”

Alla breaks down as she describes how everything she hoped for her future was destroyed three weeks ago when Russia invaded Ukraine.

The 29-year-old from Irpin worked for the Ukrainian state service on a public procurement programme that won a prestigious award last year for “improving the quality of life in society”.

Now, she sits in Warsaw train station with her son, her dog and a couple of bags of possessions – just one of the estimated three million people who have left Ukraine in the face of the devastating war launched last month by Vladimir Putin.

“With the language barrier here it’s not possible to continue my career,” Alla adds. “The state services work in Polish legal frameworks so first I’ll have to become fluent in Polish and then the Polish legal system and I don’t think it’s possible when I’m nearly 30.”

Poland has been inundated with refugees since the war began, almost all of them women, children and the elderly after Ukraine’s mobilisation law forbade any men aged 18 to 60 from leaving the country. A huge, largely volunteer-led, effort is helping to house and feed them.

Almost every child in sight has left behind a father and almost every woman a husband, boyfriend or son. Behind them is the heartbreak of broken families and the terror of daily bombings. Ahead of them is nothing but uncertainty, strangers in a foreign land with no idea when they can return home – or even if they will have homes to return to.

Alina and Anya are sisters from Kyiv. Alina studied musical art and Anya was a primary school teacher.

“I wanted to develop my career in Kyiv,” says Alina. “I wanted to be a teacher and then maybe later to open my own café or business.”

With Kyiv now under daily bombardment and a strict curfew imposed, its streets are deserted and half of the Ukrainian’s capital’s population has fled.

“We feel like guests in an alien country,” Alina says. “We feel like we have to start our lives from a new page and it’s very difficult to realise that all the dreams and hopes we had have been crushed in one day. It’s very bitter and difficult at the moment. It took a few days after we left to feel safe again because we have a very strong reaction to loud noises or planes overhead.”