Weltschau

My name is Nadia Kononenko. I am 61 years old. I come from Kupyansk. This is Kharkiv Oblast, next to such a big city as Kharkiv. I am a teacher. I have worked in school for more than 30 years. I have been a director for the last 17 years.

On the first day of February 24, 2022, so to speak, I was planning on going, which was 30 kilometres from the Russian border. A few days ago, groceries disappeared. You couldn’t buy anything with a bank card; there was no money option; and there was no internet. I was in a difficult situation. They occupied the apartments they liked, took valuable things with them, and sent them to Russia. Since the occupation, residents have feared for their own lives. The Ukrainian children were taken away from their parents and taken to Russia. Some of them got the other names and even adopted them. Russia stole around 20,000 children (according to Ukraine as of July 7, 2023).

As I have stated above, I am a teacher… A few months were relatively okay. I could continue to teach the children at the Ukrainian school. But then, when the Russian soldiers said that now it comes down to Russian laws, they articulated that you should sign a contract that says that we don’t use Ukrainian languages, and we should now teach the children a Russian program. I understood that I couldn’t do that, and I decided to go away and not take my husband with me because men up to the age of 60 are supposed to stay in Ukraine. I took my mother, who was sick, with me and then drove to Kharkiv by car. That was a very difficult route. In Kharkiv, I left my mother-in-law with relatives, and then I came alone to Germany, where my daughter and grandchildren were already there. My daughter also used to live in Kharkiv. In Germany, I only met good people.