Reporting
Volodymyr in Boutcha, Nataliia and her children in Paris: a Ukrainian family separated by war
Volodymyr Pylypenko has been in constant communication with his wife and children who have taken refuge in France since March 15.
© RFI/Aurore Lartigue
Text by: Aurore Lartigue Follow
13 mins
Almost a year ago, after seeing her house destroyed, Nataliia Pylypenko left Ukraine with her two children, Hanna and Ivan, like millions of other civilians.
She left behind her husband, her family and the memories of her “
life before
”.
Advertisement
Read more
From our special correspondent in Ukraine,
Volodymyr Pylypenko finds us in a café in the commercial center of
Boutcha, this city which was the scene of massacres
at the start of the Russian invasion a year ago.
This is where he has lived since the first days of the war, with his parents and his parents-in-law.
When asked about him, this computer developer shrugs his shoulders: "
Thank God, I'm fine,
he assures us, before continuing: "
Of course, I miss my wife, I miss my children, but the more important to us is safety.
“His wife, Nataliia and his children, Hanna and Ivan, respectively 11 and 9 years old, live in Paris where they took refuge almost a year ago.
Their story is one of those hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian families, separated by the raging war.
In his car, a little too small for his tall stature, Volodymyr drove us a few kilometers away, to Blystavytsya.
This is where he has his roots.
His grandparents and great-grandparents are buried in the small cemetery of this village.
It is also there that the couple had arranged their family cocoon, a beautiful house surrounded by flowers and greenery.
► To read also: Ukraine: seven key moments of a year of war
Volodymyr Pylypenko in front of the land where his house stood.
The charred remains were cleared away.
© RFI/Aurore Lartigue
"
Here, my house was there
", explains Volodymyr.
The town hall helped him clear the ground.
Of the building with the yellow walls, now only the mark of the foundations remains.
To find out, he scrolls through the photos on his phone.
That rounded shape there was the turret you see there.
The next photo, taken on February 28, shows the charred remains of the place where the family lived for nine years.
Volodymyr points to an area beyond the field at the end of the garden.
“
Over there is the Hostomel aerodrome.
In the early days of the war, Russian forces attempted to conquer this strategic point.
Fortunately, the house was empty when it was destroyed, but her neighbor told her that she "
saw a helicopter approaching and then shooting at the house until it caught fire
".
The family home in Blystavytsya was completely destroyed.
© Image provided by Nataliia Pylypenko
The Pylypenko family house in Blystavytsya, before the war.
© Personal image of Nataliia Pylypenko
“Natalia, we no longer have a home
”
In Paris, a few days earlier in February 2023, Nataliia Pylypenko agreed to tell us about the complex journey that led her and her two children to the 18th arrondissement.
"
It's going to be very long, I warn you
," she says in French, before taking a deep breath.
Because in her “
before life
”, this mother was a French and English teacher for the Defense University of Ukraine.
On February 24, when the war broke out, the family was in Kiev – “
Kyiv
wishes to specify Nataliia –, where she has moved temporarily to accompany Hanna, who has just entered the polytechnic college.
The family's first instinct was to flee the bombarded capital the same day to return to Blystavytsya.
His parents are also on the trip.
But no sooner have they settled into their home, where they have found Volodymyr's parents this time, than the roar of helicopters reaches them.
“
It was awful,”
she says.
There were maybe thirty of them above the house, so close you could see the pilots and the numbers on the planes.
They rush into the cellar from where the sounds of explosions reach them.
When they come out, they see black smoke rising from the nearby Hostomel airport.
So they decide to leave, this time for Boutcha, where Volodymyr's parents have a house.
“
We tried to find our bitches and our cat, but they had disappeared.
»
Plumes of black smoke rise from Hostomel airport, very close to Blystavytsya.
© Personal image of Nataliia Pylypenko
For almost two weeks, they remain holed up in the basement of the house.
“
No one had thought to take food.
And at the beginning, we didn't even have the possibility to go out to get food or to go to the toilet, we used buckets,
she explains.
There were sounds of gunfire, shelling all the time.
»
A few days after the start of the offensive, Volodymyr decides to return to Blystavytsa.
He hopes to recover the food left in the freezers and especially gasoline to be able to leave.
“
When he came back,
she remembers,
I didn't recognize my husband, he was so pale, his clothes were black.
For the first time, I saw that he was holding back tears.
He said to me: “
Natacha
– that's her nickname –
we don't have a house anymore.
»
We are at the end of February, the Russian troops are gradually besieging the city.
"
The hardest part is hiding our fear from the children: we tried not to cry, we chatted, we tried to remember songs, to draw, to play games," she explains
.
One day, they decide to go and collect food from an abandoned supermarket.
“
On the way, we saw corpses, the city was black, in ruins, torn, we saw bullet holes, holes… It was awful.
Another day, a Russian tank stops very close to the house, then soldiers enter the yard with guns.
They want gasoline… “
Seeing them through the window, very close, I said to myself, it's over
,” recalls Nataliia.
They end up leaving.
The family wants to evacuate, but there are rumors of people being executed on the road as they tried to flee.
“
The only contact we had with the outside,
specifies Volodymyr,
was a small battery-powered radio because there was no more electricity.
So we had recovered as many batteries as possible.
»
Nataliia, Volodymyr, with their children and parents in the basement of Boutcha's house.
© Personal image of Nataliia Pylypenko
At the beginning of March, they learn that a humanitarian bus must come, they are advised to follow it to leave the occupied city.
But the bus will never arrive.
They finally decide to leave in convoy for kyiv.
The journey takes eight hours instead of the normal 40 minutes.
On the road, Nataliia receives an unexpected phone call from her cousin, Andrii, a cook at the French Embassy.
He tells her that he has put her and the children on the evacuation lists.
Due to the state of war, men between the ages of 18 and 60 are not allowed to leave the country.
On March 15, Nataliia, Hanna and Ivan arrive in Paris.
On the road to exile, a member of the embassy staff, Patrick, “
our magician
”, helps them find a host family.
“
I am the mother and I also became the father of my children
”
Nataliia's story is also peppered with a litany of thanks and first names.
Héloïse and Nicolas, the couple with whom they will spend two months.
Their parents and their children of course, Jeanne, Quentin and Anouk who "
did everything possible to make the children feel good, lent them their toys, clothes, left their room
...
One day, you have everything and the day of then you have nothing.
To see that people are so generous with you is very important.
All those who helped her in her administrative procedures, to enroll the children in school, the teachers, her Ukrainian refugee friends, her new French friends, her neighbours, her work colleagues, old and new, France and Europe... Impossible to name everyone, but no one is forgotten.
She remembers the culture shock of the beginning.
“
Everything was different, the papers, the functioning of the school, even to find clothes, I didn't know where to go.
»
Today, the family is well settled in an apartment just for her, in the north of the capital.
Nataliia and her children are free to eat when they want, as is done in Ukraine, she has made her mark and knows where to find the ingredients to make the typical recipes of her country, such as vareniki, a
kind
of ravioli.
Ivan and Hanna go to school, Nataliia works as reception assistant at the Modem, a position found thanks to her host family and even writes articles on the war in Ukraine on the party website.
But "
the struggle not to fall
" here in France, to earn a living, for children to learn the language, is permanent, insists Nataliia, showing us photos on her phone of French conjugations displayed above the table. in the kitchen and all over the walls of the apartment.
The children also continue to follow the curriculum of their Ukrainian school, in the hope of reintegrating into their classes.
“
We go to bed late, we get up early, we have little time
.
»
They are just beginning to allow themselves to enjoy a little.
"
It's only since the end of October that we started to see Paris, the beauty of the city, to consider going to the museum... We realized a dream: to go to Disneyland for the birthday from Ivan in November.
»
Everywhere in the Parisian apartment of Nataliia, Hanna and Ivan, sheets filled with French conjugations.
© Personal image of Nataliia Pylypenko
"
At first, I cried every night,"
she says.
You know, I was married, my husband was my wall, the wall that protected me and took care of all the problems so that I didn't have to think about money.
There, I have to do everything, I am the mother and I also became the father of my children.
»
Throughout her story, Ivan and Hanna listen, correct her, add details.
They unite around her, take each other's hands.
They do not cry and want to make it clear.
They comment on French food, which they seem to find odd, except for pain au chocolat, which they adore.
Comment with the greatest seriousness on the level of their French comrades in mathematics, which he considers less advanced.
Have they changed in a year?
“
No, not really,”
comments Natalia.
They just became more responsible, more adult, a little more mature than their age.
Hanna wants to become an architect.
A life straddling two countries
Ukraine, of course, is always present in the mind of Nataliia, the concern for relatives permanent.
WhatsApp, Viber, Telegram… She communicates with her husband every day, they even managed to blow out their birthday candles remotely.
Volodymyr is never far away when it comes to helping his children solve a math problem or supervising the assembly of furniture from a distance.
“
We try not to talk about the war,
she underlines,
we talk about everyday life, school, children, the garden that my husband takes care of.
»
Several times a month, she goes to pick up a small package sent by her husband.
Clothes, books, medicines, and especially Ukrainian sweets, “
our anti-stress
”, enthuses Nataliia: “
Each time we unpack the package, it's like discovering a treasure
”.
They returned to Ukraine for the end of year celebrations.
“
I didn't want to be alone anymore, I wanted to be with my husband.
In Ukraine, we say that we spend the year as we spend the New Year.
I wanted to be with the family to be with the family all year round
,” she smiles.
“
No one wanted to leave, it was very hard at the station.
»
How do they see the sequel?
Nataliia hesitates: "
To tell the truth, we don't make any plans... I am told that I should take lessons here or there... But I don't want to, because we dream of going back and being reunited, to be in Ukraine and to rebuild our country.
At first we thought that after the war Volodymyr would join us in France perhaps.
But now no.
This is not our country, this is not our home.
»
On their land in Blystavytsya, before they could consider rebuilding their house, Volodymyr had already begun to build the future.
He undertook to transform two garages located on the land to live there.
A way to cheat time in the absence of his family.
Work is progressing well.
“
If someone had told me a year ago that my children would go to France and go to a French school, I wouldn't have believed it.
If someone had told me that I would no longer have a home, I would not have believed it either,
he underlines.
But human beings are able to get used to so many things, it's incredible.
He scans the expanse of his land.
“
I had my best years here.
This is my life, I was born on this earth.
His clear eyes mist almost imperceptibly.
“
So I hope I will stay there.
But life will tell us.
»
Newsletter
Receive all the international news directly in your mailbox
I subscribe
Follow all the international news by downloading the RFI application
Ukraine
Russia
France
Refugees
our selection