Hiding from Russian troops: Ukrainian mother recounts ordeal

Rivil Kofman and her son hid for days of their freezing basement, even surviving a ‘go to’ by Russian troops to their residence in Myrotske, a village close to Kyiv.

Rivil Kofman, proper and pictured together with her son David, heads a charity for kids with most cancers utilizing 'fairy story remedy' [Courtesy of the Kofman family]

For days, Rivil Kofman and her son David had been within the cross-hairs of blood-curdling duels between Russian tanks and Ukrainian artillery of their village of Myrotske, 40km (25 miles) the capital Kyiv.

They spent days in an ice-cold, pitch-dark basement with out electrical energy and working water – and even survived a home go to by Russian troopers who mistook them for artillery spotters.

Final Wednesday, they determined to attempt to flee the Russia-occupied space by automotive.

“Solely 5 vehicles made it out of there,” the bespectacled 62-year-old psychologist, who additionally heads a charity, informed Al Jazeera.

The opposite seven or so village vehicles – filled with civilians, kids and pets – had been shot at and burned down by Russian troops.

David believes it is because the Russians realised fleeing civilians would be capable of assist Ukraine’s army find their armoured autos and artillery.

Myrotske is the place Kofman began her charity, Robust-Willed, and constructed a rehabilitation centre for kids with most cancers.

A most cancers and a number of sclerosis survivor, she has for years used what she known as “fairy story remedy” to assist a whole bunch of kids with the illness by immersing them in optimistic impressions and ideas.

However her village of 1,500 was taken over by Russians shortly after the invasion started on February 24.

Russians are nonetheless making an attempt to take the strategic freeway into Kyiv and tighten a noose across the metropolis of greater than 2 million.

Myrotske is near the Ukrainian cities of Bucha and Irpin, and never removed from Belarus.

It has seen a few of this warfare’s worst combating but that killed dozens of civilians, in keeping with Ukrainian officers and witnesses.

The Kremlin has claimed it by no means focused civilians and residential areas.

However Russian planes have bombarded the world relentlessly, hitting simply behind the Kofmans’ home.

When Russian tanks and APCs entered the village, “we had been within the cross-hairs”, Kofman mentioned.

For days, the villagers – and residents of Bucha and Irpin – had been trapped of their basements with out electrical energy, pure fuel provide, warmth or working water.

They had been “totally surrounded, minimize off from every thing that provides individuals lives,” Kofman mentioned.

“A good friend informed me she was slowly dying in her home [because of a lack of essential items and services],” she mentioned, including that one other good friend spent days within the frigid darkness of her basement with a new child child.

The Kofmans’ cellphone batteries died and, solely throughout the loud shootouts, David snuck out of the basement for a few hours to begin a generator to pump water and recharge the batteries.

In any other case, the Russians would have killed him for making the suspicious noise, he mentioned.

One morning, two Russian servicemen visited their home, pondering the Kofmans had been notifying the Ukrainian army in regards to the whereabouts of Russian armoured autos.

“They walked round the home, fingers on triggers, rotated and mentioned in a walkie-talkie, ‘No, these are civilians right here,’” Kofman mentioned.

One of many troopers was in his mid-30s, with “half a jaw full of golden tooth-caps,” and seemed like a “kadyrovets,” an elite officer loyal to Chechen chief Ramzan Kadyrov.

Al Jazeera was unable to independently confirm these claims.

However, in Russia, these forces have for years been accused of extrajudicial killings, abductions and torture of Chechen civilians, in keeping with rights teams and survivors.

In Ukraine, they had been deployed “to not assault fortified positions, however to function barrier troops and to suppress armed Ukrainian resistance,” Nikolay Mitrokhin, a Russia researcher at Germany’s Bremen College, informed Al Jazeera.

The opposite, youthful soldier seemed to Kofman like an ethnic Russian.

“We checked out their faces, they appeared stuffed with hatred to Ukraine since that they had been born,” Kofman mentioned.

Russia has lengthy portrayed common Ukrainians as Nazi-sympathising ultra-nationalists.

In 2014, Russian President Vladimir Putin mentioned Moscow’s annexation of Crimea and assist to separatists within the southeastern Ukrainian areas of Donetsk and Luhansk had been triggered by Kyiv’s “violation of rights of Russian-speaking Ukrainians”.

He used the identical pretext to justify the continuing invasion – one thing Russian-speaking Ukrainians just like the Kofmans reject.

“Right here they had been in our village, liberators of the Russian-speakers,” Kofman mentioned, including that, like many others angered by the warfare, she has determined to change to Ukrainian in her day by day communications.

The 2 troopers left with out harming her and David, however they declare others had been killed amid the violence.

“After we arrived at a roadblock in [the central Ukrainian city of] Vinnytsia, [a] neighbour informed us the column behind us was shot at,” David mentioned.

They drove their Hyundai Accent previous Russian roadblocks with tanks and realised they had been out of hurt’s method solely after passing two Ukrainian posts.

“Solely then, we shed tears of pleasure,” Kofman mentioned.

Hours later, they stopped for the evening at a volunteers’ home in central Ukraine and ended up in a two-bedroom residence in Ternopil, a metropolis in western Ukraine.

Despite the fact that two-thirds of their associates and acquaintances have crossed into neighbouring Poland or different European Union nations, Kofman plans to take a seat out the warfare in Ukraine and assist different displaced Ukrainians in Ternopil as a psychologist.

“I wish to thank Putin for making all of us associates,” Kofman mentioned, referring to a rising sense of unity because the warfare continues.

The battle has damaged down the boundaries between the Russian-speaking east and south and the Ukrainian-speaking centre and west, she mentioned.

“They used to snigger at us in Western Ukraine, saying: ‘Look, Muscovites have come,’ however now everyone seems to be dearest member of the family,” she mentioned.