Ex-Miss Ukraine recalls escape with son amid Russian invasion: ‘I had to survive’

Miss Ukraine 2018, Veronika Didusenko, 26, recalled her flight from the country at the end of February, amid bombing by Russian forces. She was sleeping in the capital Kiev on the 24th, when she woke up to the sound of sirens warning of Russian bombing.

“I turned on the news and went to my Facebook feed to find out what was going on,” recalled the young woman in an interview with the US website Fox News Digital.

“I saw that my friends were posting things like, ‘The war has started. The Russians have invaded Ukraine and are bombing Kiev’. I was so shocked. I grabbed all my clothes – I already had my luggage packed. I woke up even my son [Alex], and took it to my car. I started driving to western Ukraine. I had to get out of there.”

In the interview, Didusenko says that many of her friends did not believe that Putin “would go so mad” as to start a war, but that she had already noticed a movement of soldiers at the borders.

To save herself and her son Alex, 7, she had hours of traffic jams on the road out of Kiev. “It took us two days to get out of Ukraine because of the big traffic jams,” she said.

“Everyone was running to the border too. I was driving with military cars on one side and tanks on the other side, with Russian helicopters flying above my head. I was very scared for my life and my son’s. enough food, enough water”.

He continued: “You especially couldn’t sleep with the sirens on all the time. Every noise from a car or plane made me look around. I was worried it was a rocket, a bomb or someone shooting. […]. I knew I had to survive.”

After traveling through three countries and being welcomed by friends in Geneva (Switzerland), the model went to Los Angeles, where she spoke on March 8 on behalf of Ukrainians under attack. She says she is recovering from the sights and sounds she witnessed, and says she is lucky to have been able to escape, as bridges were destroyed and many were killed in the escape attempt.

“All that mattered to me was saving my son’s life,” he said. “I just grabbed my stuff and left quickly. At this point, you don’t care about anything else. You’re just thinking about finding safety, a place where there are no rockets, bombs, or sirens.”

For a child, she says, the experience is even more traumatic. “Whenever he talks to our friends, he tells them, ‘My mother took me out of Ukraine so I wouldn’t get shot.’ He understands the whole situation, how serious it is. But he also understands that I would do anything to protect it.”

Despite the ongoing conflict, Didusenko praised Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy for being “an incredible leader”. “He’s handling it extremely well,” he said. “He is a leader trying to do everything possible to unite our people, keep them strong… This war is a tragedy for Ukraine. Now people are forced to fight or flee for their lives. It is terrorism against a country. peaceful, independent and democratic.”