Volodymyr’s phone, which everyone here calls “Vlad”, keeps ringing. Since Saturday, he has been setting up, with his brother, this convoy bound for the border between Poland and Ukraine. Stops are planned in Bordeaux and La Rochelle, where other donations will be collected. The first batch of equipment was made up in an emergency, through the mayor of Bayonne and the director of the hospital. After a first trip to the Ukrainian-Polish border, the two brothers will go to Germany and then plan to return to the Basque Country for a second convoy.
Leaving at 2 p.m. on Sunday, Andrii, 40, and Volodymir, 37, must cover 3,000 kilometers before reaching their destination. “It’s the minimum we can do,” comments Andrii. Passed by a military university, he says he can fight. “I also know artillery, I know how to repair machines. But his friends at the front “rather need equipment”, it seems.
When the family stays
The two brothers, natives of Kolomyia, a town of 60,000 inhabitants to the west, 100 kilometers from Romania, south of Lviv, still have their grandparents and cousins there. They are fine. Their cousin’s wife, precisely, has been trying to cross the border to the west since Saturday. “They covered 5 kilometers in ten hours and there are still 25 kilometers to go. The exodus of women and children worries them. “What hurts me are the calls from my friends asking me to pick up their families at the border,” breathes Volodymir.
He takes out his phone: “Here, you don’t see that”. On a video, a Russian armored vehicle rushes into a car. The following shot shows men struggling to extract a grandfather from the crashed vehicle. “There, that’s the war they’re waging. “He, like his brother, has his eyes glued to social networks. He no longer sleeps, “just think about that”. “We are crying a lot at the moment, but every tear that falls gives us courage,” asserts Andrii.
This first convoy will perhaps be followed by a second, a little more extensive, in the coming days.
Emilie Drouinaud/ “South West”
They left their family in Ustaritz. Andrii is married to a Ukrainian, met in the Basque Country. She comes from the Russian-speaking East. His nephew sends him videos of the occupants, taken from a window. “For three days, my wife has been trying not to speak a word of Russian,” says Andrii. She wanted to leave with him, even watched videos to learn how to make Molotov cocktails. The neighbor had even offered to take care of their children. But she stayed.
“We cry a lot at the moment, but each tear that falls gives us courage”
Volodymyr’s wife is Russian. For three days, “she has been crying”, “she also wanted to come with me to prepare food for the soldiers”. He had to explain his departure to his 9-year-old son and his 5-year-old daughter. The little one doesn’t really understand. “My son, I’ve been trying to explain to him for three weeks. The separation is painful, of course, “but I can’t stay idly by, even if I have to leave for three or four months”.
“Today with us, but tomorrow”
The two brothers do not exclude anything, not even having to fight. “When you have two hands, you can help,” insists Andrii. If the situation gets worse, he will stay there, he says, affirmatively. Their mother, who lives in Italy, tried to dissuade them. “But we’re big,” replies the eldest, shrugging his shoulders. Some Russian soldiers are not much more experienced. “They are 18-year-old kids. Yesterday they were at school and there they have a gun in their hands. »
For both of them, pronouncing the name of Russian President Vladimir Putin is out of the question. “He didn’t think we were going to unite like that, he believes that the Ukrainians are his people! The future of other countries bordering Russia is also a source of concern. “The war today is here, but in two weeks it may be in Poland. »