Exclusive story for DW of Irina Romanova, who has been living in Tirana for several years and experiences the war in her homeland more from conversations with her mother and relatives in her homeland, than from news and TV chronicles.
The Russian missile attack on Monday morning (March 21) on the military training ground in the city of Rivne, in Western Ukraine, brought Irina Romanova to Tirana, difficult hours of anxiety, fear and hope. In Rivne lives her mother, who has decided to stay there, even at the cost of her life. “Fortunately he is alive. The Russian missiles landed a few kilometers away from the area where my mother lives,” Irina told me on the phone as she read the news of the Russian missile attack on her hometown.
Just a week ago in Rivne, about 160 kilometers from the border with Poland, 20 civilians were killed and the local TV tower, built 55 years ago, was destroyed by Russian missiles.
The lives of people and children blown up
Irina experiences the war in her homeland more from conversations with her mother and relatives in her homeland, than from news and TV chronicles.
Irina Romanova
“Great misery, lives of people and children blown up by bombings, destroyed infrastructure, mass graves, flats, dilapidated hospital schools. Women and children fleeing sight to save lives. But my mother will not leave. When I tell him to come to Tirana, he answers that he does not leave my country and people in this terrible war and crisis “, says Irina for DW.
According to UN figures, since the start of the Russian aggression last month on February 24, some 12 million people have been displaced outside Ukraine and 2 million inside, and 43 health care facilities have been bombed.
“In the face of this destruction, Ukraine is standing up, not giving up. Russian aggression has brought us together against Putin. We are all on the battlefield, regardless of social position. We are a nation that has not attacked anyone, that has defended its land to the last drop of blood. There are two different things: to surrender the city and conquer it. We never forgive Putin for killing Ukrainian children. We fought against Nazism, now we fight against Putin. “Even if Kiev falls, it will never be occupied,” Irina Romanova told DW.
Irina, 35, has completed her studies in Ukraine as an environmental engineer. The scholarship he won to qualify in Scotland changed his life. There she falls in love with a boy from Albania, marries and decides to live and work in Tirana, where she has lived for 11 years.
Russia – historically genocide against Ukraine,
In clear Albanian, Irina tells DW the story of her family in Ukraine.
“I come from a family that has survived the persecution of the communist regime. My paternal grandfather was Russian and my gypsy grandmother from Ukraine. The grandfather, born on the outskirts of Moscow, fought against the Nazi occupation in World War II, was severely wounded and lost his sight. “But in the time of Stalin and the communist dictators who followed him, my father’s family was persecuted on charges of collaborating with the Nazis, as my gypsy grandmother had survived!”
Irina emphasizes that “Russia has historically aimed to invade and keep Ukraine under control. In the time of the former Soviet Union, Ukrainians were treated as second-class citizens and denied national identity. On the eve of the aggression, Putin declared that “Ukraine has never had its authentic nationality.”
When in 1932 in the former Soviet Union wheat production fell due to collectivization, which caused the deep famine crisis, 1932-1933, four million ethnic Ukrainians died of starvation. The famine eradication crisis in Ukraine was hidden by Stalin and those who came after him for 90 years. Just three years ago, in 2019, it was recognized by 16 countries, the US and the Vatican, as “Stalin genocide against Ukrainians.”/DW
