‘My family feel far away but at least they are safe'

Last week we told the story of Sasha Bubnovska, who fled Ukraine with her girls after a harrowing ordeal. Today David Cohen speaks to her husband, who stayed

- David Cohen

“I SUDDENLY felt very, very alone,” said Dima Bubnovskyi, as he recalled the gut-wrenching moment last Thursday he watched his wife Sasha and their daughters Sofia, six, and Mia, two, disappear down the road towards the Polish border. They had a few kilometers to walk to safety, but he had to turn round and drive back towards danger.

“All my instincts as a father were to go with them but martial law meant otherwise," he said. “We had spent this intense week together, fleeing the bombs and sleeping on the floor of safe houses, and before that eight days hiding in the basement of our home in Irpin which was under fire from day one - and now we were forced to say goodbye to each other.

“It is hard to put my feelings into words, but it was like somebody took away all the important things in my life. I told my girls I loved them, that it would not be long before we were together, but inside I felt empty. I feared that maybe I will never see them again, though I was desperately trying to hold onto hope."

Dima, a 29-year-old computer science graduate, could not risk going back to Irpin, so he drove to Truskavets, a town 90km from the border in western Ukraine, where the 80-year-old mother of a friend put him up in her spare room, and where he is currently staying.