Durban - When she left for Ukraine early this week, Victoria Field had no idea she would be preparing to live in a now war-torn city.
Field also had no inkling her son could be called up to fight for the Ukrainian army.
Field lives in Gqeberha with her husband, but left for a visit to her family.
Ukraine has been under attack since Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered a full-scale invasion of the neighbouring country this week. Many nations have condemned the military attacks.
Field arrived on Wednesday. “At 6am on Thursday, a neighbour knocked on my door and said the war had started.
“We heard about a possible air attack and people outside are expecting danger and they are hiding underground, under their homes. From my apartment, I can hear very heavy shelling, that is over another area where the Russians are trying to capture.”
She said at the shops, where she stocked up on supplies, people were quiet and serious and there were no long queues.
“I have bought a fire extinguisher and oxygen respirators, food for a few days, water and many were prepared. War is not new here, it was already going on for eight years.
“My son, 25, was serving as a soldier in Ukrainian army a few years ago and he is an experienced soldier and is with family now and he is waiting on a call for mobilisation for services,” she said.
Nataliia Galak, a Durban resident with a one-month-old baby, said she was exchanging messages with her mother who was hiding from bombs and shooting in the windowless bathroom of her flat.
Galak said she her mother lived in a town 20 minutes outside Kiev and was terrified of “the murders” that could come with the arrival of Russian soldiers.
She said yesterday that her constant communication with her terrified mother had switched from video calls to texting, after attacks on communications installations.
“She wants to get out to the west of Ukraine, where we originally come from, but the roads are all blocked,” she said.
Galak was unable to join compatriots in South Africa to protest at Russian diplomatic missions in Cape Town and Pretoria yesterday, so she is spending her time on social media, sending out messages calling on people to help the Ukrainian cause.
“We are calling the South African government to condemn what Russia is doing. You never know, they could come here. Russia is so unpredictable. There is no logic,” she said.
Galak, who was born in an independent Ukraine after the break-up of the Soviet Union, said she witnessed the 2014 troubles between Ukrainian and pro-Russian forces.
“But this is way worse than that,” she said.
Galak said the west of Ukraine had always been relatively quiet, especially compared with the east, and that she was still able to communicate with her family there.
“It was always peaceful there but now they are bringing the trouble there too. My grandparents, sister and her child are also scared,” she said.
She came to South Africa at the age of 25 and is married to a South African.
Igor Kalishenko, a videographer in Durban, has been in hourly contact with his family close to Crimea. They are stranded in their village because bombs have destroyed access bridges.
“They are staying home but the children are all in the basements,” he said.
Communications remained open yesterday afternoon.
Kalishenko said he had never felt like he did now with his home and his life facing invasion.
“It is quite unique,” he said.
Kalishenko said the nearest place his family could flee to would be the west of the country, 24 hours away by train.
Iryna Vesela, who moved to Durban in 2007 after meeting her South African husband while working on cruise ships, said she was worried for her brother who had joined the fight.
“He is not a military person, but this is now about dignity,” she said, shedding tears.
Half-Russian, half-Ukrainian, she said she had Russian friends who sympathised with her, even some of those who used to be pro-Putin.
“He is no longer a politician. He is a war criminal,” she said.
Vesela was overwhelmed that something “so barbaric” could happen to a sovereign state in the 21st century.
Mila Ivanova, a Russian citizen, was supporting protesters at the entrance of the Russian Consulate of Cape Town.
“This act of war is an atrocity and should not be happening in the 21st century. I feel for my Ukrainian friends and what they are going through. Having lived in a country where I see democracy play out okay, despite some challenges, I know there is room to make peace, all it needs is unity, and that is why I am here to offer my support,” said Ivanova.
The Department of International Relations and Cooperation said the SA Embassy in Ukraine was assisting South African citizens there, and that South Africa was “dismayed at the escalation of the conflict in Ukraine. We regret that the situation has deteriorated despite calls for diplomacy to prevail. South Africa emphasises respect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of states.”
DA leader John Steenhuisen said he had written to National Assembly Speaker Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula to ask her to schedule a debate of urgent national public importance on the unfolding crisis.
Late yesterday, Putin urged the Ukrainian army to overthrow its leadership whom he labelled a “gang of drug addicts and neo-Nazis who have has lodged itself in Kiev and taken hostage the entire Ukrainian people”. In a televised address, a visibly angry Putin urged the military to “take power in your own hands”. Putin repeated his claim that the Ukrainian leadership had been engaged in “genocide” in the Donbas region in eastern Ukraine.
The Independent on Saturday