In Blighty

What Is Life Like For Ukrainian Women In Britain?

PHOTOGRAPHY BY ZOYA SHU

MARIIA CHEPA

All I have to do is remember the 52 days when I lived under Russian occupation and the tears start to flow. The big war started with my Mum waking me up, saying: ‘Russia’s started bombing us,’ and that was when the world changed. The Russians came, overwhelmed our local forces and we lived in fear for 52 sleepless nights. What’s that sound? A bomb? A tank? Are they going to rape me? Kill us all? I didn’t panic. I didn’t cry. But I was in a stupor wondering if they will rob me of my family, my home, my city or my life today. Or tomorrow? Watching my parents being lost and truly scared for the first time, asking myself who may be gone first? Today? Or tomorrow?

When the Russians were a few miles from our home, I used to ask myself, ‘Has the world gone mad?’ The answer is no, not totally. Here in Blighty, I can feel the kindness of the British people. I can see it, so many blue-and-yellow flags in their windows. But now that I am here enjoying peace and beauty it somehow feels wrong. I have fun. I have freedom. I go to watch plays in London’s brilliant theatre land. I love pubs. I love hanging out with my host family in Streatham which, is, of course, where Naomi Campbell – the inspiration for all models - comes from. But back home, my family is still waking up to the sound of sirens, my friends are still fighting for their lives at the frontline and my people are still trying to survive genocide.

Every time I see the view at night from the Millennium bridge it takes my breath away. I cannot help but being mesmerized by the greatness of this city. But immediately I think that, thoughts about my parents experiencing war puncture my joy. Life seems an absurdity. You want to share all these happy moments of discovering something new about this world with them, to show them places they have never been but you can’t. Russia stole those moments from you. My parents who used to be driven by their own dreams and goals in life now live only with one goal – for me to survive. So I find myself in London.  

I was fortunate not to be raped or killed. Unlike far too many of my fellow citizens. Russians would simply enter your household and shoot your livestock. Or a member of your family. They raped girls, boys, women, men. Day after day we woke up running to the shelter, hearing news about cities being destroyed, Ukrainians being killed and world leaders asking us not to fight back so intensely to help the monster save the face.

Fuck that.

Under occupation, my days would start with me thanking God for being alive. At night I would go to sleep with a prayer, that I would wake up again. I have never been so close to the death and God at the same time.

I still pray for my family, my city and my Ukraine but along with that every night I thank the British people for making so many Ukrainian refugees feel like home, for letting us tell our stories and helping us to fight for freedom, for giving our democracy and the world another chance.

Slava Ukraini!

OLIA HERCULES

I have been living in London, this outlandish, brilliant city, for almost fifteen years. London has been kind to me, I found friendships and love and work that I adore. But being a Ukrainian in London right now feels complicated. I’m in a soup: chunks of activism, resistance, serenity - keeping calm for my kids – and in moments alone, howling grief when I cry and cry and cannot stop.

Right now, I spend much of my time explaining Russian ecocide in our home town to a world that doesn’t quite get it. Our family home is in occupied territory close to the Nova Kakhovka dam which the Russians blew up, creating an environmental catastrophe that will take decades to make good. The Russian narrative is that that we blew up the dam with artillery. But witnesses heard one explosion, then the water surged. That points to a Russian mine under the dame. They control the dam. They don’t care about the ecological damage, the cholera outbreak and the drought to come. We Ukrainians do.

For me, the battle is not one of bullets and artillery shells, but of the mind, to do my absolute best not to lose my marbles. I must try to preserve my sanity. But I want to be with Ukraine every minute in my head and in my soul. I must be thoughtful not to make my family in Ukraine worry about me, for we are in a much safer place than they are. I miss my previous life’s boring routine and making plans to see my mum, dad and extended family in the Ukrainian summer. This exhausting, confusing existential soup is seasoned with a huge dash of gratitude and a hefty pinch of perpetual guilt.

As ever when times are cruel, looking after your loved ones or, as important, looking after the feelings of your loved ones, is a kind of torture. My mum, Olga, 65, and dad, Petro, fled the occupiers and found refuge in Berlin with family. But then dad decided that Ukraine needed him and he returned to join the local version of Dad’s Army, living in free Ukraine but not that far from the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant which the Russians might, like the dam, blow up: an act of sadism which would be both petty and grand at the same time. My dad suffers from Parkinsons and had a stroke in April so I had to rush to Ukraine to see him. Why couldn’t he stay in Berlin with all the free and amazing health care?

I know the answer to that. Because he’s a proud Ukrainian. Because he’s my dad. Of course, he’s going to go back.  

He, it – the whole horrible situation - makes me want to cry all the time. Sometimes when people ask ‘how are you doing?’ I dare to tell them the truth. For example, ‘Not the best day of my life, today the occupiers have blown up a dam 15 minutes away from my parents’ home.’ Pretending to be ‘OK’ when you’re not is exhausting.

It is important to try and care for myself, and to allow myself to feel joy, but the urge to be with Ukraine every minute in my head and in my soul is overwhelming. It is a surreal and hellish kind of balance - life and war.

I try to be thoughtful not to make my family in Ukraine worry about me, for we are in a much safer place than they are. And every time I cry in front of them, I feel guilty, especially this winter, when I phoned my dad on WhatsApp and he was inside his sister’s house in central Ukraine in his woolly hat and winter jacket because the Russians had bombed the power network and they had no electricity. It feels even more surreal when after yet another missile attack on Kyiv, to my frantic ‘Yak vy?’  - How are you? - my brother replies with a smile - “all OK!”

When has it become ‘OK’ to be OK after your city has been bombed overnight? I often picture this happening in London - hearing colossal, horrible sounds at night, waking up and finding out that four houses in Turnpike Lane were wiped out by a missile, sleeping families murdered in their sleep. My hair stands on end writing this. The resilience of my dad, my brother and my extended family’s resilience still shocks and inspires me.

I miss my previous life’s boring routine in London - enjoying an afternoon in the park with my toddler, going for a meal with my husband, having friends over for food and drinks in our garden. It still happens and momentarily I am able to lose myself, but even in those moments the hum of war-related anxiety is under my skin. That nonchalant carefree innocence of being in the moment is tainted by the worry, by that morning’s news.

Most of all I am missing making plans to see my mum, dad and extended family in the Ukrainian summer, it has always been a welcome antidote after a whole school year of city life. It was hard to hear the other day on a podcast, that even if they free the Kherson region, it might not be safe to go for another twenty years - so big is the damage of the exploded dam and the mines that the water washed all over the region.

Despite all these devastating, negative feelings, I am also thankful to London, to its people - mostly full of empathy and support. To the opportunities it gave me all those years ago, and hopefully to many others now - the new arrivals.

TETIANA KOTOVA

November 3 2021, I'm on a plane to England. I am so afraid to fly, that I close my eyes and don’t open them until we land… I fall in love with England at first sight, welcomed by the Cornish rain. I worked on a farm in Connor Downs, then near Penzance.

I fell in love with the vast fields, the fabulous forests and the sandy shores. We worked in the fields with a view of the magical St. Michael Mount and at the weekend we explored the West Country. I met my man, Anton from Kazakhstan, on the farm.

On February 24^th, we woke up at 5 am. My phone was completely dead so I didn't take it with me to the fields. The Romanians sang cheerful songs, the Belarusians told jokes, the Russians laughed at an elderly Polish man and we Ukrainians just worked. Then word spread that Russia had started the big war. I burst into tears.

I borrowed Anton’s phone to call my mum back home. She was OK. That day, the Russian guys on the farm worked quietly, looking at their feet…

The first batches of Ukrainian refugees poured into Europe and there were huge queues of people at the border with Poland. Everyone helped each other as much as they could. I ordered 48 kettles for families but I still felt uncomfortable that I was in England, in peace and quiet, while my country was at war.

My mum and dad, long divorced, lived in Zaporizhzhia, mum, Oksana, working in a supermarket, helping the military. Dad, Andrii Kotov, went to war. He texted me:

"Everything's great, we're getting ready for war. Don't worry, daddy will protect you and mommy! The only thing scarier than daddy - is your mommy."

            A week later he was dead. He loved books – Jack London, Rider Haggard, Tolkien - so when the photograph was taken for this piece, I wanted to be in a library to remember my dad. We ended up in the British Library. He is – was - a hero.

            After the farm contract ended, I came back to Odesa. There were constant blackouts, the house was very cold and three of us - me, my mother and grandmother - slept together on the couch. The windows in the house were sealed with duct tape in case of an explosion.

My mother and grandmother were very anxious and the atmosphere of war was grim.

Back to England: not Cornwall, this time, but Barking in east London. I'm sitting on a couch in a rented apartment. I bought some posters to decorate the walls - one of the posters says, "Dreaming is free" - it’s perfect for me because I have no money. I dream that the war will end soon. My life isn't so easy anymore. I am unemployed, I have no friends here - there are a lot of people around, it is very noisy sometimes. I'm still getting used to the London Underground and I get lost all the time. But I love London’s architecture and its people.  I observe how confident the English people feel, how smiling and courteous they are - I feel comfortable in this society and even more important - I feel safe.

But when I think that somewhere in my country there is a brave soldier, sitting in a trench in the rain, his hands holding a gun – perhaps he dreamed of holding a microphone, he could be a singer - I realize that I should try to be happy and stop whining. I must be brave, like my dad.  

MARIA ROMANENKO

Conscious decisions to move countries are normally months, if not years, in the making. I had 60 minutes to pack my bags and follow my British partner in our escape from the Kyiv region.  That meant I became one of the first Ukrainian war refugees in the UK. Technically, all but a handful of Ukrainians are arriving in the UK on a recognised visa scheme but the word “refugee” has still stuck and come to describe us.

I am fortunate that the UK is actually a familiar country. I studied here between 2009 and 2014, and my partner is a born and bred Mancunian. He was desperate to leave when we heard the bombs dropping. And so, after a lot of queuing and fighting British bureaucracy, I arrived at Manchester Airport on March 2, 2022 – before the two Ukrainian visa schemes were even announced.

When you arrive in a country as a “refugee”, you must adhere to an unofficial set of rules that you only find out when you break them. Being not just a refugee, but also a Ukrainian journalist with a sizable audience, I learnt this the hard way. Immediately, upon exiting the airport, I was encircled by journalists who followed my story and knew I was landing. They asked if it was great to be in the UK and be safe. Beyond just being straight out confused – the journey from Kyiv to Manchester took me seven days, and my mind still hadn’t caught up with my ever-moving body – I felt the need to highlight some pressing issues.

I talked about how the UK should have made it easier for Ukrainians to come to the country and how Europe as a whole should have done more to help Ukraine. The UK is still the only group of countries to not allow visa-free access for Ukrainians in Europe. I also highlighted the need for more weapons, some of which have now been supplied, and the closure of the skies over Ukraine – something that hasn’t happened.

“Don’t bite the hand that feeds you,” some British people commented under the interviews, branding me “ungrateful.” “Why is she complaining? She's safe, she should be happy,” others said. But I was in the UK both as someone who had fled the war but also as a semi-ambassador to my country. Every Ukrainian who appears in the media, on account of them being Ukrainian, should have a duty to push for support for Ukraine. More importantly, I had a platform and my fluency in English. I don’t control the questions I get asked, so what do people expect? Do they want me to lie and say “everything the UK is doing to support Ukraine is perfect” even when I don’t believe it?

Back in Ukraine I had produced and edited a magazine called “How We Will Get Crimea Back”, which highlighted Putin’s war crimes against Crimean Tatars and Crimean activists. My involvement, particularly taking into account it was handed out to 47 UN leaders, likely landed me on the Russian “kill list”. So, taking that into account, I’m clearly going to speak out in support of my country that is warding off the Russian aggressor on behalf of the whole civilised world.

The trolls overlook another key point. I am out and physically safe. Yes, that is great… for me. But I still have my family back in Ukraine; my dad, joined his local territorial defence unit when he was 59. I still have friends on the frontline. When the big war started, I still had friends hiding in basements. I still knew of women who were being gang-raped or of children being abducted. My friend Maks Levin, a fellow journalist, had just been killed by the Russian army while other journalists were going missing. How utterly selfish would it be of me to not speak out when given the chance?

But despite going through grief, I tried to also get on with my life. In April 2022, I brought my mum to Blighty. It was her first time in the UK and she had long dreamt of visiting London. I helped her dream come true the following month, and so, posted a smiling selfie of us by the River Thames. I thought that my followers, staunch supporters of Ukraine, would be happy to see her safe and us happy – even if we were only happy at that moment. Alas, I received a DM: “What are you smiling for? You no longer look like a refugee, just someone living a good life in England. Don’t you know your country is at war?”

Last year I appeared on the podcast “Yours Sincerely” with the Labour MP Jess Phillips. After the recording, we were talking about this phenomenon. Jess is a passionate campaigner in the area of domestic violence. She mentioned that domestic violence victims have to endure the same nonsense. It’s not enough for people that they’ve suffered, they also have to look a certain way, lest their story stops being “believable.”

And so, I am Goldilocks’ Refugee. I can’t be unhappy, I can’t be happy, I have to be just right. And we, Ukrainians, have to get it right every single day, for fear of being judged or the world no longer supporting us – as if our mental trauma is not enough of a tormentor.

To this day, I try not to say anything too negative about life in the UK on Twitter. I’ll still answer the questions asked honestly. I’ll still passionately advocate for Ukraine and Ukrainians. But I also know that I will internally moderate my comments. And I stopped smiling as broadly in most of my photos as that message about it not looking the right way still rings loud in my head.

It’s a shame because I am grateful to be here, I am happy to be here, even if I don’t show it to the prerequisite degree. Ukrainians, like me, are also happy and grateful too. We just also need the understanding that we are grieving and that we are missing family members and friends. We all still wake up and immediately check to see if everyone we know is safe after the previous night’s bombings. And almost all of us, myself included, want to go back when it’s safe.

John Sweeney collated these stories from Ukrainian women in Blighty. His Sunday Times best-seller, Killer In The Kremlin, is published by Penguin Books.

Zoya Shu's work can be seen here: https://www.zoyashu.info/