Brazilian soccer player Rodrigo Albatroz, 29, has been in Ukraine for six months and reports that he woke up in the early hours of Thursday (24) to the noise of explosions in the city where he was, Kharkiv, near the Russian border.
Albatroz plays for FC Volchansk and trained normally the night before the bombing. Then it was communicated by the coach that, given the state of emergency decreed by Ukraine on Wednesday afternoon (23), football championships would be suspended.
The recommendation passed by the club was for Albatroz and the other five Brazilians on the team to leave Kharkiv as soon as possible. Located in eastern Ukraine, the city is the second largest in the country and is about an hour from Russia.
“We thought, ‘Okay, let’s get out as soon as possible, but [com] certain tranquility’. It is a region that has had conflict for years, to the east, but we thought it was difficult to happen. [um bombardeio] overnight, so quickly, in our city, imagine all of Ukraine”, he says.
“We talked [os jogadores] what we had to talk about, we slept, and I woke up, literally, to the sound of the bomb. We went to the window and you could see the flash of the bombs. It was about ten minutes without reaction, to try to understand. We left the window and stayed in the hallway, for protection.”
At 5:13 am, the Brazilian woke up to the explosions and, at 5:43 am, he left for his girlfriend’s grandmother’s house, with his mother-in-law, all Ukrainians. In about four hours they arrived in Krasnokutsk, the city furthest from the Russian border, where they are still waiting for a safe exit from Ukraine.
Albatroz reported that in the morning lines began to form at markets, pharmacies and traffic jams along the way. A trip that he would take in two hours to his girlfriend’s grandmother’s house was covered twice as long.
In contact with the Brazilian embassy, ​​he still does not know how he will leave the country. According to Albatroz, the consulate said that within two days it will promote the first withdrawal of Brazilians via Kiev, the Ukrainian capital that has also been the target of attacks.
The problem is that the journey to get to the city, which would take more than six hours without traffic, can be more dangerous than staying in Krasnokutsk, reports the player. Therefore, Albatroz says he will remain in the place until he receives concrete instructions on how to leave.
In the girlfriend’s grandmother’s house there are underground spaces where the family could protect themselves from bombings.
The Brazilian hopes to leave the country as soon as he can and head to Latvia, where he lived since 2013 before heading to Ukraine.
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