More than half a million people have fled west from Ukraine, their lives turned upside-down in an instant when Russia launched its invasion of the country.
Reporting from the main square in Krakow, Poland, CTV News Chief Anchor and Senior Editor Lisa LaFlamme spoke to three recent refugees late Tuesday afternoon.
American Jeff Vinall and his Ukrainian wife Anna started preparing for the worst when Russian President Vladimir Putin gavxjmtzywe a rambling, falsehood-riddled speech about Ukraine on Feb. 21, just days before the assault began.
“We watched his speech on live Russian television and he said Ukrainian people do not have a right to exist,” Jeff Vinall told LaFlamme. “He said, their culture, their language and their identity is fictional—and I turned to Anna and I said, ‘Ukrainians are to Putin what Jews were to Hitler. We got to get ready to get out of here.’”
“My father said, ‘No, it’s not possible, Belarus will not go for us,’” Anna Vinall added. “And today they’re coming to kill them all.”
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Anna’s parents, grandmother, and sister’s family remain in the country. She says it’s difficult to get any news from them.
“They can reach [us] for only two seconds just to say they are alive,” she said. “I just said to my mom that I loved her.”
Alongside the couple, another expat had recently escaped with his wife, her mother and their two teenage sons. Originally from Scotland, Stuart McKenzie had lived in Ukraine for 20 years.
“It was a big decision to leave,” he told CTV News. “We have families there, we’ve got extended families there, we’ve got pets there.”
Jeff Vinall wants the world to stop buying Russian gas and financially isolate the country “until Vladimir Putin is out of office and tried for war crimes.”
“My city, my family and everyone I love is facing annihilation from the Russian war machine,” he said. “I was sad yesterday, I’m angry today.”
“He’s killing our kids, he’s killing out mothers, he’s killing our fathers,” Anna said of Putin while holding back tears. “He’s killing the whole nation.”
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Stuart McKenzie (left), Jeff Vinall (centre) and Anna Vinall (right) speak to CTV News Chief Anchor and Senior Editor Lisa LaFlamme in Krakow, Poland about leaving their homes in Ukraine. (Rosa Hwang/CTV News)
