Ukrainian Tatyana Malik studied at the University of Cologne for a master’s degree in Slavic studies. She had to temporarily interrupt her studies because she gave birth to a son and is now on parental leave. “When my mother called me on the morning of February 24 and I heard her alarming voice saying that a war had come to my country, I almost dropped the phone from my hands, but then I squeezed it so tightly that for some time I could not relax my hand. I really became scared for my family, for my relatives and friends, for my fellow countrymen,” Tatyana says in an interview with DW.
Tatiana: “I have despair instead of tears”
“My uncle has already gone to war. I cry every day. It seems to me that since Putin attacked my homeland, I have cried so many tears that I simply don’t have them anymore, now I have only anger and despair,” – says Tatyana Malik, mother of a three-month-old child, in an interview with DW.
Together with her husband, they hoped that Tanya’s parents would soon see and take their grandson in their arms, but after a recent call from her mother, Tanya found out that her 53-year-old father, instead of his grandson, would take up arms to protect his city, his homeland from invaders. Tanya bought plane tickets for her parents in March, but the war changed their plans dramatically. “Despite the fact that my parents live in Lvov, not far from Poland, they are not going to leave the country. My mother says that she cannot stay at home without her father, she is also ready to go to war,” says Tatyana.
The young mother is afraid that the worst thing can happen, that she will never see her parents again. “It’s good that I don’t breastfeed my son, I would give all my nervousness to him with milk, my son began to sleep worse because he feels my condition. I have insomnia, I constantly think that there is a war in my country. embraces horror and rage,” says Tatyana.
Tatyana Malik with her son Andrian
She does not understand why Putin is forcibly trying to deprive Ukrainians of the desire to live in democracy, why he threatens to remove the democratically elected government and President Zelensky, elected by the people. Tatyana does not want Ukrainians who feel European to be occupied by a country where democracy and freedom are suppressed, where people are afraid to end up behind bars just for speaking their mind. “I’m scared at the mere thought that my country can return to the past, to the former USSR. I can’t imagine that we will have laws that the Russian State Duma adopts. The people of Ukraine have chosen their own, independent path, and Putin wants to return them to past. What right does he have to decide the fate of my country?” – asks a Ukrainian woman living in Germany.
Last Sunday, she, along with her friend and compatriot Anna Pashchenko, were at a rally near the Cologne Cathedral – for the peace and independence of Ukraine. It is important for a mother of a small child that her voice be heard. “I can’t sit at home and silently watch videos from my friends and relatives in Ukraine or on social networks. It’s important for me to say my “no” to Putin’s aggression and “yes” to Ukraine’s independence,” Tatyana emphasizes in an interview with DW.
Anna: “I am with my countrymen with all my heart”
“It is also important for me to show my solidarity with my people. That is why I am going to the rally for the second time,” emphasizes Anna Pashchenko, another student at the University of Cologne, the mother of a five-year-old son, who is studying German and English studies, in an interview with DW. Her parents live in central Ukraine, in the city of Kropyvnytskyi (formerly Kirovohrad).
“My morning on February 24 began with a message from my 63-year-old retired mother: “Anya, we have a war.” So far, according to her, the city is not bombed – there are no significant military facilities there except for the flight school. But my parents live in fear. My father is 53 years old, he is ill and is unlikely to be able to defend his country with weapons in his hands. Neither they nor I, their daughter, want an independent Ukraine to become a colony of Russia, which will decide how Ukrainians live. Precisely therefore, I go out to rallies, express my solidarity with my peoples and hope that Ukrainians will defend their freedom and independence,” Anna emphasizes. She feels helpless and does not know how to help her loved ones in Ukraine. “Our homeland suffered a terrible grief,” she emphasizes. Yesterday, Sunday, on the fourth day of the war, Anna learned from her parents that they were on their way to the Polish border and hoped that they would be able to leave Ukraine in order to escape the war.
Anna Pashchenko with five-year-old son Justus
28-year-old Ukrainian Anna Pashchenko is graduating from the University of Cologne, but has no plans to return to Ukraine yet. “Ukraine is my country, I was born and raised there, it hurts me for what is happening there now. I really want it to develop and flourish as a democratic state, and not languish as an appendage of Putin’s Russia. Ukraine must become part of Europe, because that my people have a European mentality, that’s why I don’t miss a single demonstration in Cologne in support of my people,” she says. According to Anna, the most important thing for her in these difficult days is that her family survives and that Ukrainians can live in a free country.
Her friend, a native of the Crimea, Elena B., also lives in Cologne. She had not seen her family for seven years. Elena has a Ukrainian passport, and her mother, who lives in Crimea, was forced to get a Russian passport, otherwise she would have lost everything that she had acquired in her entire life.
Elena: “Putin divided my family”
Elena B. (she asked not to give her last name) is graduating from the University of Cologne with a degree in special pedagogy for children with learning and behavioral problems. Now she is doing an internship in one of the Cologne schools – before becoming a certified teacher. She has three small children. The last time she was in Crimea was seven years ago: “I can enter the peninsula, but I’m afraid that I and my children may have problems leaving. The fact is that I have a Ukrainian passport, and I don’t want to change into Russian. It is enough that my mother had to take Russian citizenship.”
Elena, in an interview with DW, admitted that the annexation of Crimea was a real shock for her. “They took away my homeland, and the fact that I left there earlier and I can’t live there, because I created my family in Germany, does not calm me down much. My close relatives, my mother, live in Crimea, and I have to watch that how Putin’s propaganda divides my family I stop recognizing my mother who listens and watches only Russian television and doesn’t know what’s going on around her She practically became a victim of Putin’s propaganda People live the same as before, living conditions and standard of living they have not changed, only their worldview, way of thinking is changing, and I am very sad to watch all this, “- Elena admits in an interview with DW.
Elena B. doesn’t want her mom in Crimea to get in trouble because of her DW interview
“Mom grew up in the Soviet Union, like the older generation, and mom does not know how life is in a democratic society. For many years she has been under the influence of Russian propaganda, and I am powerless to change something. mutual understanding. And it depresses me a lot,” Elena emphasizes.
She is shocked that Putin has launched a full-scale war against Ukraine. “I would never have thought that after the Second World War, the danger to the whole world would come from Russia,” Elena admits. She was shocked by the statement by Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov that the so-called “special military operation to demilitarize and denazify Ukraine” was being carried out so that “Ukrainians themselves could freely determine their future.”
In response, Elena says: “Ukrainians made their choice long ago, no one forced them to make it. Russia’s war against Ukraine pursues the interests not of the Russian people, but of a handful of Russian oligarchs and politicians who want to subjugate an entire people, an independent state. And it is very painful for me to watch how my countrymen, Ukrainians, in the 21st century are forced to sacrifice their lives for the freedom of their people, for the right to be independent and decide their own destiny.Putin has already taken away my homeland, my Crimea, and now he is trying to subjugate the entire Ukrainian people. But the people will not give up, I am sure of that,” emphasizes a Crimean woman with a Ukrainian passport living in Germany.
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