The story of a man from Gostomel: The human rights activist evacuated from Gostomel with his wife and bedridden mother

Vyacheslav Bodnar is an employee of the Ukrainian Gelsinsky Union. He calls an apartment on the outskirts of Gostomel a “dream come true.” He did not want to leave his house, even when he saw black smoke and Russian helicopters over the Gostomel airport. However, after a few weeks in the zone of active hostilities and later in temporary occupation, Vyacheslav realized that if he and his family did not leave Gostomel, the Russians would kill him for his pro-Ukrainian position and human rights activities.

The conversation with journalists took place in Lviv, where Vyacheslav miraculously managed to leave with his family.

“First, a column of Kadyrovites entered,” recalls Vyacheslav, “these are the same “royal Kadyrovites” who supposedly were supposed to enter Kyiv and destroy the President.”

According to Vyacheslav, the Kadyrovites did not stay in Gostomel for long. We drove armored vehicles through the streets, looted shops, and drove on.

After the Kadyrovtsy, there was an intense shelling of houses.

Vyacheslav describes this moment as follows:

We are standing near the house, and the guys say: “A drone is above us; we quietly go inside.” And so we just went inside, and a terrible shelling began at home. That is, I clearly remember how I am lying on a bench in my little room in the basement, a terrible blow occurs, and lying down, I feel how I am raised by three meters in this shelter along with the house, and just as slowly lowers. It was explicitly a blow to the wall; it was precisely at home. When we got out, we saw that one side of the house was utterly destroyed, and all the cars - about a dozen - were on fire, including mine. I returned and told Inka [wife] that we no longer had the car. We found ourselves in a trap, making it difficult to get out with mom.

After some time, guys in Colorado ribbons came in, - says Vyacheslav. - There was recruitment there - both Kaluga and St. Petersburg, judging by the conversation and accent, and Buryats, well, all of them - it is visible that these are not those who are at war. When they approached, people hid in the basement and closed the door - there was an armored door - they locked this door.

The Russians fired several shots at the castle, after which it jammed. We asked: guys, don't shoot; we'll kick the door. And they waited until we kicked down the door.

According to Vyacheslav, the Russians forced everyone to leave the basement and took away their mobile phones. Smartphones were smashed, and push buttons were taken away. Then the elder said that the Ukrainians are to blame for what is happening and, in general, they are shelling themselves.

“These did not stay long, a maximum of a day or two, and after them, such combat units already entered, well, it is clear that these are already older fighters,” Vyacheslav shares. - About people, it was also different - some continued to play the game “we are polite people,” and some looked as if right now they were ready to “twist” you.

Vyacheslav said that the soldiers of the third wave of “orcs” (as Ukrainians call Russian soldiers) began smashing apartments without warning.

“I realized that that’s all, that if I don’t get out of here today, then it’s simply unrealistic to survive,” says Vyacheslav. - We started preparing my mother, I found a garden cart in the cellars, and the next day I sat on the receiver and listened. Fortunately, by ten in the morning, Vereshchuk said they were preparing a green corridor from Gostomel. Then, after some time, they told us where the passenger pick-up point would be: the collection point.

We went along with the others, with this cart in which we loaded our mother.

They took only a backpack with Inka; they threw a bag with diapers and everything else mom needed into the cart.

Vyacheslav said that it was tough to walk. He realized he could not physically drag the cart with his mother 12 kilometers to the collection point.

But at some point, a guy in a car stopped next to them and helped them get to the place. Unfortunately, the misadventures did not end there - the collection point was moved three more times.

Every time they stopped to get new coordinates, Vyacheslav had to build a shelter for his mother from the wind and cold from improvised means.

He remembers the last time he did it:

He dragged a piece of the sofa, put it, put something on the other side, there was a bag to protect it a little from the wind because it was just lying on the road. Well, I covered it with blankets, then with a sheet of corrugated iron, and it turned out to be such a coffin. At this time, people slowly began to pull themselves up on foot and walked from the colony; they all wandered, passing by the following collection point of the Yagoda residential complex, the residential complex from which we started our journey. Buses will come there. Well, it's still about a kilometer. Well, I understand there is no way out except to transport it somehow again. Naturally, I didn’t find any carts or anything like that nearby; I took the only thing - there were blinds lying around, which shops close at night, these are such band blinds. I threw this blind on the road, loaded my mother into it, and dragged her further on these blinds. Well, I pulled.

Vyacheslav was rescued by the guy who gave him a lift with his family to the collection point at the very beginning and helped him a few more times along the way.

He found a cart from the supermarket, where Vyacheslav loaded his mother and drove her to the evacuation buses.

“There were only seven buses and 350 people,” recalls Vyacheslav. And the buses are already completely packed; the doors are closed. And it’s standing there like it says “Ryatuvalna service” with flashing lights, which should lead the convoy; I find a coordinator there and say: “I need to go with my mother, a person who is not walking, I need to decide something.” He says: “Now there will be more buses, 30 buses left Kyiv. We are waiting for the rest to catch up." I say: "So where are they?" He says: “We were driving, somewhere half was lost.” This goes on for about an hour; there are no buses, my mother is lying there completely freezing already in this basket near the buses, Inka is standing crying near the door - at least let her in, she freezes, and this coordinator: “So why are you silent?” It knocks there, once - the doors open, we bring it into one of the buses, put it in the aisle, well, there - a bag, on a bag for mom. An agitated situation begins; people understand that there will be no more buses, so they start rocking the buses there, breaking, knocking, and forcing all the men they see to get out. Well, in general, a couple of men got off the buses, women took their place, and we drove on. Well, that's the whole story."

Vyacheslav also shared what he saw in Bucha, through which the road of evacuation buses ran:

Bucha turned into just some kind of horror, cars were shot all around, and vehicles with the inscription "CHILDREN" with white flags were completely riddled, in a ditch there, there, there were people shot, if there was a door somewhere, then it must have been kicked out.

Not a single residential complex was practically intact; everything was shot, and there were charred black holes everywhere.

When I first saw that cloth hanging at the checkpoint there - a small Ukrainian flag on some branch- it was indescribable because I realized that we were already in Ukraine.