Ukraine war refugees tell of their escape from Russia invasion | Border Stories

As Russia launches terrifying attacks on Ukraine cities under the command of Vladimir Putin, refugees fleeing the war in Ukraine speak to the New Statesman in this exclusive video filmed on the border of Ukraine.

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Viktoriia Zota and her daughter Valeriia, aged nine, left the eastern city of Kharkiv on the second day of the war, on 25 February. They drove for three days, sheltering along the way with people who offered help, mostly through Facebook. “We had a huge fear of getting under Russian tanks, under Russian bullets, but we had an even bigger fear that we might have to stay in an area occupied by Russia,” she says.

Inside Záhony station on the Hungary/Ukraine border, some of the refugees sleep on the floor. A bench in the station café is occupied by Indian students – some of the 18,000 who had been in Ukraine. They were studying medicine in Kharkiv until the war began, and the building next to their hostel was bombed. “Many of the shellings and missile attacks were right beside us,” says Aaron, a student from Kerala. “We have seen death at our doorsteps.”

Read more in Alix Kroeger’s dispatch from the Ukraine border here