When Igor Lutsenko, 32, greeted his mother Lyudmila Soloshenko, 55, at the Atlanta airport last Monday, he noticed right away that she was physically and emotionally spent.
“She could barely walk. I literally had to almost carry her because her legs were just giving in,” said Lutsenko, a Ukrainian immigrant who has been living in metro Atlanta for roughly five years. “She didn’t have the energy to give me a hug or even cry, for that matter. She was completely drained.”
Soloshenko’s arrival at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport marked the conclusion of a harrowing journey that started three days earlier when she fled her Kyiv apartment. Her city had become a target of the bombs and missiles that heralded Russia’s full-scale invasion of its western neighbor.
U.S. authorities have not yet created a special refugee or humanitarian parole program for Ukrainian citizens. Last month, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki stressed that “most, if not the majority” of those fleeing the country will want to remain in Europe. Soloshenko was able to enter the U.S. because she already had a valid tourist visa, having visited Atlanta over the holidays.
“My mom was very fortunate,” Lutsenko said.
Credit: Steve Schaefer
Credit: Steve Schaefer
Knowing his mom is safe under his roof in Lawrenceville has taken a big weight off his shoulders. But he said the relief he feels is only “partial.”
“I’m still very worried for the rest of my people … Some of my friends are still trying to desperately get out and hearing all their stories, seeing the destruction and seeing the deaths, seeing all the horror scenes, it’s just been very tough. I’ve been an emotional wreck.”
The family say they are aware that, like the rest of the 1.5 million refugees who have fled Ukraine since the start of the Russian offensive, Soloshenko has no guarantee of seeing her home or her husband ever again. He stayed behind in Kyiv, unable to leave the country because of an edict from Ukrainian authorities banning the departure of men ages 18 to 60.
On the day the family spoke with the AJC, Soloshenko’s husband was taking cover in the basement of their apartment building, sheltering with the couple’s two cats from an increasingly indiscriminate Russian bombing campaign.
“I have no words to describe how I feel,” she said in Russian.
A grueling evacuation
Starting late last year, Lutsenko says they had been monitoring the gradual massing of Russian troops at Ukraine’s borders to the north, south and east, weighing whether Soloshenko should leave. Ultimately, they decided the prospect of a Russian attack was too far-fetched.
“During the conversations we were having, nobody ever thought that this could happen. Literally nobody,” Lutsenko said. “That a military invasion like this could happen in 2022 was just unthinkable.”
That calculus rapidly changed when the Russians launched their assault in the early morning hours local time on February 24. Asked when she left Kyiv, Soloshenko says it was the “second day,” meaning February 25th.
“We don’t know the dates or days anymore,” she said. “All we do is count the days after the invasion.”
Soloshenko first travelled from Kyiv to the city of Lviv, in western in Ukraine, via car. Because the roads and highways were clogged with vehicles heading away from the war’s frontlines, the journey lasted 18 hours, nearly three times the typical duration. After waiting for hours in cold weather, Soloshenko boarded a bus in Lviv headed to the border with Poland. The coach was full so she had to sit on the floor, causing a knee problem to flare. The 45-mile ride to the Polish border took 10 more hours.
By Saturday night, Soloshenko was in a hotel room in Warsaw. By Monday morning, she was on a plane bound for Atlanta. Although she’s been here for roughly a week already, Soloshenko says her mind still plays tricks on her.
“Just yesterday, she ran to me three different times saying she’s hearing either an air raid siren or gunshots,” said her son. What she was actually hearing, he says, were the sounds of the houses’ motorized blinds and car exhausts backfiring on the street. “It’s tough to see her having some sort of PTSD or shell shock… Any kind of noise brings her back to Kyiv.”
Forced to flee with only her travel documents and a change of clothes, Soloshenko will have ample time to get settled.
Last Thursday, the Biden administration offered Ukrainians living in the U.S. a temporary humanitarian reprieve from deportation, citing the war with Russia. An 18-month Temporary Protected Status (TPS) program — which also confers the ability to solicit work permits — will only apply to Ukrainians who were already present on U.S. soil on March 1. Lyudmila landed in Atlanta a day earlier.
“In these extraordinary times, we will continue to offer our support and protection to Ukrainian nationals in the United States,” Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas in a statement.
The pain of misinformation
Although Soloshenko has been based in Kyiv since 2003, both she and her son are originally from Crimea, a peninsula along the northern coast of the Black Sea that Russia annexed away from Ukraine in 2014.
Because it is Russia-controlled, Crimean residents, including many of Lutsenko and Soloshenko’s relatives, are exposed to the same state-media propaganda that is distorting many Russian citizens’ understanding of the conflict, painting Russia’s incursion into Ukraine as a targeted effort to protect Russian-speakers from violence.
Like many Ukrainians with family members in Russia, Soloshenko says her family members’ refusal to acknowledge the existence of the war is causing a rift, creating an additional source of anxiety in an already tense time.
Trying to counter the Russian propaganda has so far been futile.
“All that does is create an argument … Imagine not having the support of your family” in this time, Soloshenko said. “It adds another very large layer of pain, emotional pain.”
In Lutsenko’s household, Soloshenko at least has an effective way of disconnecting from the crises back in Ukraine: her new granddaughter, just eight months old.
“The little one is helping her take her mind off the situation. She is able to play with a kid and laugh and forget about what’s happening,” Lutsenko said. “I think that’s very, very helpful at the moment.”
Despite the arrival of both the new baby and his mother, Lutsenko says there are still leftover rooms in his house. He hopes to offer them to a refugee family, if he gets the chance.
“I want to try to help out any way I can.”
Credit: Steve Schaefer
Credit: Steve Schaefer
Lautaro Grinspan is a Report for America corps member covering metro Atlanta’s immigrant communities.
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