‘We have been told we must be ready... for worst-case scenario’
ACROSS Ukraine mothers, grandmothers and children are fleeing in their droves while fathers, husbands and sons stay to fight Vladimir Putin’s Russian forces.
More than one million civilians have now fled Ukraine according to the UN – more than 450,000 of them have crossed the Poland-Ukraine border.
But many more are staying put, making petrol bombs with glass bottles and chemicals, and barricading bomb shelters with metal sheets in scenes not witnessed in Europe since the Second World War.
The Star has tracked down Sabina Jenkins, who is living with her mother Oksana and her grandmother Larysa in their home in a village a few hours south of Kyiv.
At Sabina’s request, we’ve removed her exact location from this article. She is terrified they will be next, but she insists she has not considered leaving her homeland.
A matter of weeks ago Sabina was in Llanelli with her husband, soldier and engineer Michael Jenkins – originally from Ringland in Newport – who she met while he was stationed in Ukraine with the marines as a machine-gunner.
“We lived 50m from the sea in Llanelli,” Michael said. “We don’t like the busy city life so it was great there.
“An opportunity came up in the US for us to move out there and start a new life for ourselves with fewer visa complications. I went out there to get things moving and Sabina went to Ukraine to sort paperwork. Then Russia invaded.”
Now Sabina, her mother and her grandmother are among the hundreds of thousands of ordinary people across Ukraine ready to defend their country. In a video last week call they show us their remarkably homely bunker with a log fire, beds and jars of essentials.
“It’s my granny’s basement, but we’ve made it into a shelter,” Sabina explains.
Minutes before, Sabina took us outside in the calm village where she showed us her grandmother’s self-made petrol bombs. The glass bottles with rope attached to them and film wrapped tightly around the top explode on impact. This is by no means unusual now.
“My grandmother has made these before,” she says, picking one up from the covered box to give us a closer look. “But I have never made these in my life. I never thought I would need to make them.”
Asked whether she thinks she’ll need to use them, she responded: “Yes I do think I will use them. We have been told we must be ready, we must be ready for anything. We
I can’t imagine leaving like this, no. No, it’s my family. My gran is here and I grew up here as a kid. If I leave, then what? Of course, I don’t feel safe. Who feels safe in a war? But we will stay here and stand up for our land Sabina Jenkins
must be ready for the worst-case scenario.”
They had the chance to leave the country and still do, but Sabina says her grandmother has spent her life in Ukraine and wants to defend it. Sabina insists she will stay with her.
“I can’t imagine leaving like this, no,” she said. “No, it’s my family. My gran is here and I grew up here as a kid. If I leave, then what?
“Of course, I don’t feel safe. Who feels safe in a war? But we will stay here and stand up for our land.”
Michael, 39, is due to arrive back in Ukraine in the coming days and says he has not given up convincing the family to move to a safer place, even if that is in Ukraine. On his return, he says his priority is ensuring the safety of his family, before turning his attention to fighting the Russians as a volunteer soldier.
Military service is in his blood. He’s fought around the world and was in the British Army until 2005, before enlisting again in 2016 as a reserve. He has fought in Ukraine against Russia for much of the time since, but he says this time is different.
“This could be a huge war,” he said from his current base in Buffalo, New York. “The worst one I think I’ll experience by far. Ukraine is going to fight until the end and Russia has made it very clear of their intentions.
“I think when the worst does come Nato can’t stand by and let
that happen. And where does that leave us?”
Michael says he has been taken aback by the generosity he has seen across Western Europe and the US. For him personally, he has managed to get enough money via an online fundraiser to help his family and fly back to Ukraine.
“I have had people sending me money from all over the world who I don’t even know. It’s not just me, seeing the clothes and donations being sent from the UK makes me really proud of my country right now. I just want to say a massive thank you to anyone who has helped my family financially or emotionally.”
Sabina said she cannot comprehend the “hate between Ukraine and Russia” now.
“None of us expected this,” she said. “Maybe in Donbas or Luhansk, but not here. We never expected Putin would do this to the ordinary people. Ukraine and Russia were brothers, now people have so much hate for each other. I have no words for it.
“A lot of people are dying and Russian people are being told on TV that people in Ukraine are happy to see them [Russian soldiers]. It is totally wrong and not true.”
At a time of utter desperation, Sabina’s small village community has emboldened her family’s resolve to fight for it.