Russia launched an invasion of Ukraine on February 24. Almost seven weeks have passed since the beginning of the war. Halyna Sička, who raised children in Melitopol, where she worked as a seamstress, remembers the start of the war very well. The first shot was reportedly fired around five or six in the morning. “The windows shook violently. It was so loud that when I opened the pantry to prepare food for the children, it threw me. I thought, I thought: no, it can’t not be a war.” she described, gradually realizing that her country was at war.
“They started texting your kids won’t go to school, stay home today. We were hoping it would end soon. People started panicking, started withdrawing money. money at ATMs. Queues began to form at pharmacies,” she said, with planes flying over the city. It is said that she passed through her hometown to bombard other cities. But the stores stayed open at first, and people hoped to buy and everything would be fine again and the war would end soon.
However, the situation worsened. “When I went out on the 27th to look for food, I just couldn’t get any because everything was closed. I went down to the market. I saw a car there after the explosion. Then I I found out what kind of car it was. It was my client’s car. I’m a seamstress, she brought me some things. She was about to give birth. It was her son’s blown up car. husband. On the 25th, he went to the maternity ward. He was hit four times.” fortunately, he survived. Long queues for drugs began to form, and drugs as important as heart or blood pressure began to decline until they were no longer available. People ran out of money and banks were closed. They could only choose 5,000. The daily struggle for food also began. “You get up at five or six in the morning and start driving around town. You look for places to distribute food to survive. Nobody knew how to leave.” she said she was lucky in the end and escaped with the children.
In winter, they go on a journey into the unknown. “The road from Melitopol to Zaporozhye: we drove through the fields, it was cold, it was scary, I heard an explosion. We drove around min. It was terrible. A driver, named Anton, drove the whole column from Mariupol, from Melitopol, he was not afraid. He disembarked people and risked his life to go around the mines himself”, she said that by train they reached the border, then Poland, then the Czech Republic. It is said that the volunteers helped them a lot at the border. In the Czech Republic, she met her husband and the father of her children. “It was our longest and most difficult meeting. We couldn’t believe it had happened, that we had been through this.” describes the meeting.
The behavior of the occupiers in the country is absolutely appalling. “They behaved rudely, as if everything belonged to them,” describes Halyna. When people begged to leave, the Russians only replied, “As long as we get paid, we’ll be here.”
“They come to search everything. They say they are looking for weapons, but in reality they are not. They are looking for something to steal,” Halyna recounts, noting that she saw Russian soldiers firing a gun. wash in the tank!” When they discovered Nutella in looted homes, they saw it as the height of luxury.
Do you host refugees at home or otherwise help Ukrainians in the Czech Republic?
Blesk launched the ProUkrainu website, where they can find practical advice and news in Ukrainian, written by people who have already gone through the same process.
VIDEO: Halyna Sička fled Melitopol to the Czech Republic with her children.
The Russian economy cannot live on its financial reserves indefinitely and will have to change to cope with the consequences of international sanctions. Governor of the Central Bank of Russia Elvira Nabiullin said today. She also predicted that Russia’s inflation rate will not return to the central bank’s target level of 4% until 2024. According to Reuters, it signaled a further cut in interest rates.
“The period during which the economy can live on the reserves is limited in time,“, Nabiullin said. “And in the second and third quarters, we will enter a period of structural transformation and the search for new economic models,” she added. According to her, the sanctions have particularly affected the financial market, but “they are now starting to affect the economy more and more”.
Inflation in Russia stabilizes and the ruble returns to normal. Russian President Vladimir Putin said this today during a meeting with government officials on national economic issues. According to TASS, he also warned that the West’s attempt to cripple Russia’s economy in response to the outbreak of war had failed and Western countries’ sanctions had backfired.
Many Western governments have imposed unprecedented sanctions on Russia for its invasion of Ukraine. A number of large private companies also announced the cessation of their activities in the Russian market after the start of the war.
The Russian Foreign Ministry has declared certain employees of the Bulgarian Embassy in Moscow undesirable. It thus responds to the expulsion in March of ten Russian diplomats from Bulgaria. Russian diplomacy has not yet specified the number of Bulgarian diplomats identified as undesirable, TASS reported today.
The Russian Foreign Ministry today summons the Bulgarian ambassador. “He received a note from the Ministry declaring the staff of the Bulgarian Embassy in Moscow undesirable,“It is stated in the brief announcement of Russian diplomacy.
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