Vlad Popovich, 29, was sheltered in the basement of a school in his village just outside Kyiv as Russian forces advanced. “He told me, ‘Mom, do not come here.’ Something awful is starting. This is not like in the movies. “This is a terrible war,” Tetiana recalls. The next day he tried to escape, but was shot and wounded – and then disappeared, leaving his family in a state of anxiety. It is one of thousands of families torn apart by the Russian war, with loved ones scared to death buried in the rubble of buildings, injured and unable to come into contact with or even forcibly transported by Russian soldiers to Russia, Belarus. or in occupied territories in eastern Ukraine. Ukraine’s Interior Ministry says police have received more than 7,000 missing persons since the start of the Russian invasion. Only about half have been identified. Tetiana, 52, spends her days looking for her son, clinging to the hope that her only child is still alive. “It’s the hardest thing,” she said, speaking in Buha, where she lives with her mother. It is a mile from the village of Blystavytsya where her son lived with his father – Tetiana’s ex-husband – and his stepmother. “If I only had some information about what happened to him. I never thought I should know if my son was alive or dead,” he said. Image: Tetiana Popovic has not spoken to her missing son since early March Vlad tried to escape from his village with his stepmother Polina Chervakova, 47, in their minibus on March 2, Tetiana explained. But when they reached a bridge, they came under fire from Russian soldiers. The couple jumped out of their vehicle and tried to escape on a grassy path, but Polina was shot in the jaw. He told Vlad that he could continue, but was then shot in the leg. Polina turned to go back and help him, but was shot again in the shoulder. She collapsed, unconscious. When Polina was released, Vlad was nowhere to be seen. “She tried to look for him, but it was dark. She was in shock,” Tetiana said. Picture: Vlad Popovic shot and wounded as he tried to escape from Russian soldiers Severely injured, Polina hit a nearby house. Russian soldiers were inside and told her to leave. She survived for several days in the icy cold before finally returning to the family home and her husband. “He ate snow and drank water from a puddle [to survive]”, Said Tetiana. By that point, Russian forces had taken control of the area. Tetiana was living in a different part of the country at the time, so she could not look for her son until the end of March, when the Russian soldiers were finally beaten. From that point on, she did nothing but look for Vlad, pasting posters with her cell phone number outside buildings and fences in the area. She is sure he is alive. “I have no other thought,” Tetiana said. “I think he is in captivity or has lost his memory. Maybe he is somewhere in a hospital because now we have a lot of confusion with the documents because [Russian soldiers] “He destroyed all the lists and notes of the injured,” he said. Picture: Anna Kotlyarova with her daughter Inga Levko and her son-in-law Andrii Geleta Another mother suffers similar anxiety. Anna Kotlyarova, who lives in Kyiv, has no news of her daughter, Inga Levko, and her daughter’s husband, Andrii Geleta, following the March 4 text message. The couple was renovating their new home in the village of Kolonschyna, just outside the capital, and was staying with a neighbor next door when Russian forces stormed the area. The neighbor’s house was destroyed, while the couple’s house remains standing, but was temporarily occupied by Russian soldiers until they retired in late March. “On April 7, when we first arrived here with police and criminal investigators, they did not find any bodies,” said Anna, standing outside the couple’s house and next to the ruins of a neighbor’s house. “They only found burnt phones and maybe some animal bones.” Image: Anna has not heard from Inga and Andri since March 4 And she still hopes that her daughter and her husband are alive. “You know … I tell myself it’s. I want to believe in a miracle.” Asked what she missed most from her daughter, Anna said: “We are inseparable parts of each other … We were on the same wavelength. I do not know … It ‘s like losing half of yourself or even losing everything yourself.” Anna will also never give up until she finds answers. “I try to stay strong,” he said. “If something happens to me, no one will look for it.”
