The pain of separation is a cruelty inflicted on millions of Ukrainians by Vladmir Putin’s war of aggression.
Hanna (48), her daughter Katya (24) and her son Ivan (11) live in a small hotel room in Howth, County Dublin.
Their husband and father, Eduard (50), remains in the family’s hometown of Sumy, near the Russian border in north-east Ukraine.
As a man between the ages of 18 and 60, he is not allowed to leave the country.
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“We are waiting until he turns 60,” Hanna says. “That’s a joke.”
On a remote call to Hanna and Eduard on a recent morning, Hanna was just waking in Ireland and wiped tears from her cheeks throughout the conversation. Eduard had been up since 3am because the Russians were bombarding Sumy, as they do often. He lives alone in the family’s 10th floor penthouse apartment.
When his son and daughter appear briefly on our computer screens, Eduard laughs with joy and sadness, a laughter close to tears.
“I want to smell them,” he says.
Hanna and Eduard met as students at Sumy State Polytechnic where she studied economics and he studied mathematics. She stayed at home, while Eduard owned a freight transport company.
“We were together for 25 years and we’ve been separated for three,” she says.
[ ‘The Russians are 40km away. When they get to within 22km, we’ll leave’Opens in new window ]
“We’re not separated!” Eduard insists, almost angrily. “We’re apart but we’re not separated.”
“Of course. We love each other,” Hanna says. “We have children in common.”
“Don’t cry. You will get me started,” he answers. “We have our kids. I don’t have any other kids. Stop crying.”
“I can’t. I can’t help it.”
“I’m laughing because she makes it sound as if she has other kids,” Eduard says.
While their children make new friends and assimilate in Ireland, Hanna and Eduard are in suspended animation, tied across the European continent by an invisible thread. Neither can live fully without the other.
“When I wake up in the morning I start scrolling for news of Sumy,” Hanna says.
“I follow it all day and it makes me anxious. Every night, we go through the day’s events on the phone together.
“As we are talking now, I hear explosions, but you get used to it,” Eduard says.
“I don’t feel afraid because you and the children are not here. When you were here, we went to the basement every time there was an alert. Now I don’t bother. If you live with children, it’s a totally different kind of fear.”
Last November 20th a missile exploded on the esplanade between the high-rise apartment buildings where Eduard lives, killing 16 people. People rang Hanna all day to ask if her husband was all right.
Before the war, Eduard supported Ukraine at football matches. If Ukraine wasn’t playing, he supported Russia. Like millions of Ukrainians, Hanna and Eduard are of mixed parentage. His mother was Russian. Two of her grandmothers were Russian.
The family spoke Russian at home until the full-scale invasion, when they tried to switch to Ukrainian. “There’s no such thing as ‘half Russian’ or ‘a quarter Russian’,” Eduard says. “We have only Ukrainian passports. We are 100 per cent Ukrainian.”
Hanna and the children left twice; the first time when the Russians briefly occupied the suburbs of Sumy early in the full-scale war, the second time in July 2022.
“A distant relative told me: ‘Let’s go together to Ireland.’ I agreed. We bought tickets but then she couldn’t go, so I went alone with Kate and Ivan and one suitcase.”
Katya goes by the Irish name “Kate” now.
Eduard drove Hanna and the children to the bus station.
“I cried,” she recalls. “He said, ‘I don’t know when I will see you again’. We took the bus to Poland and then a plane to Ireland.”
“Ivan was 8 and now he is about to turn 12,” says Eduard. “You see how long it has been because you see your kids growing up. I told Ivan he is the man in the house now.”
“When we arrived in Dublin, I thought it was magical,” Hanna says.
“We were met by wonderful people. I called Howth ‘Beverly Hills’ because you have the sea and a castle and beautiful views. At first, I was frightened by the aircraft making their final approach to the airport, because I was used to the war.”
Hanna works as an assistant in a cookery school. Katya completed her biology degree from Kyiv University online and found a job in a care home in Malahide. Ivan takes his electric scooter, a gift from Irish friends, everywhere. He wants to be a delivery man when he grows up.
“I have a wonderful English teacher,” Hanna says.
In her free time, Hanna walks by the sea, goes to the fish market, takes the children to the gelato shop on Harbour Road.
Eduard spends time with Sasha, the godfather of his children and his best friend since childhood. A handsome, bald man with dimples and smile lines that fan out from his eyes, he suffers from poor eyesight and a post-Covid lung ailment.
“I don’t want to talk about my health,” Eduard says, “but I’m definitely not fit for service”.
Hanna says Ireland is her second home.
“I am very glad that I got to live here, because Ireland gave me new experiences. This is the first time I’ve worked outside the home. I’m learning English. I want to get my driver’s licence and learn golf. The hospitality and openness of people remind me of Ukraine,” she says.
“I like everything and everybody in Ireland. The one thing is living in the hotel and the rules. We’re allowed no electrical appliances, only the hairdryer. No kettle. I can’t cook, cannot have a fridge, simple things you need for a normal life. Between what Kate and I earn, we could pay rent but people don’t want to let to refugees.”
Hanna says Kate wants to stay in Ireland because she has found a boyfriend.
“And you have a boyfriend in Sumy,” Eduard says.
“Yes, my boyfriend in Sumy. You are too old to be a boyfriend,” she replies. Both laugh.
“I couldn’t live without his laughter,” says Hanna. But she is reluctant to return to Sumy.
“I brought my kids to safety. I will take them back only when it is safe. Personally, I want to go back, but Eduard says we shouldn’t.”
Asked what he will say to Hanna and the children when he sees them again, Eduard says: “I will just hug them and kiss them. I cannot imagine this day. No one can.”
