With a cane in one hand and balancing on a pair of slippers, he walked all day without food or water to reach the Ukrainian lines. The escape occurred after new advances by Russian troops.
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A 98-year-old woman escaped from Russian-occupied Ukraine by walking almost 10 kilometers alone, with flip flops and canehaving already reunited with his family after being separated while fleeing to safety.
Lydia Stepanivna Lomikovska and her family decided to leave the town of Ocheretyne in the eastern Donetsk region last week after Russian troops entered and fighting intensified.
The Russians have advanced in the region, Attack kyiv’s depleted and ammunition-starved forces. with artillery, drones and bombs, reported the Associated Press (AP).
“I woke up surrounded by gunshots, how scary!” said Lomikovska, in a video interview published by the National Police of the Donetsk region.
In the chaos of the match, Lomikovska separated from her son and two daughters-in-lawincluding one, Olha Lomikovska, wounded by shrapnel days before.
The younger members of the family took back roads, but Lydia wanted to stay on the main road.
With a cane in one hand and balancing on a pair of slippers, the old woman walked all day without food or water to reach the Ukrainian lines.
Describing her journey, the nonagenarian said she fell twice and was sometimes forced to stop to rest, even falling asleep along the way before waking up and continuing the journey.
“Once I lost my balance and fell into the mountain. I fell asleep a little and kept walking. And then, for the second time, I fell again. But then I got up and thought: I need to keep walking, little by little’“Lomikovska highlighted.
Pavlo Diachenko, acting spokesman for the Ukrainian National Police in the Donetsk region, said that Lomikovska was saved when Ukrainian soldiers They saw her walking along the road at night.
They handed her over to the “White Angels”, a police group expelling citizens living on the front linewho then took her to a shelter for displaced people and contacted her family.
“I survived that war”said the old woman, referring to World War II.
“I also had to go through this war and in the end I was left with nothing,” he added.
Lomikovska stressed that World War II was not like this: “Not a single house burned. But now everything is on fire.”.
In the most recent twist of this ‘adventure’, the CEO of one of the largest banks in Ukraine announced this Tuesday, on his Telegram social network channel, that the bank will buy a house for the elderly woman.
“Monobank will buy a house for Lydia Stepanivna and it will surely live in it until the moment when this abomination disappears from our land,” said Oleh Horokhovskyi.
Source: Observadora
