Mariana Vladimirtsova was finally settled in western Ukraine after evacuating her native Kharkiv, which has been pummeled by Russian bombs since the first days of the war. Now she and her family are fleeing again because their new makeshift home in Lviv is near one of several targets struck by Russian missiles Saturday night, upending the region’s sense of security.
"We were only just starting to feel settled here,” she said as she stood with her husband, her two children and her husband’s mother on the platform at Lviv’s train station Sunday evening, about to board for Przemysl, just across the border in Poland. They were still deeply shaken by the memory of what they experienced in Kharkiv, in Ukraine’s northeast. "We were so close to the explosions there,” she said.
She lamented their departure, especially the fact that she would have to leave her husband behind because martial law prevents men of military age from leaving the country. But they had decided that it was safer for the children if Vladimirtsova took them over the border.