Alejandro Ballesteros, a 43-year-old from Madrid, lives in a continuous
déjà vu
of anti-aircraft alarms and comings and goings to the shelter he shares with thirty other people in Kirovograd, 300 kilometers southeast of Kiev.
He settled there three years ago, after a season in China, with his wife Valeria, a Ukrainian citizen, whose family lives in the city.
The couple could flee from the Russian bombs to Spain, but for now they have decided to stay with their family.
On Ballesteros' table, in his in-laws' house, where they have lived since the Russian invasion, there is a crime novel.
The book serves to abstract him from the persistent "fear" in a war that, until February 24, he saw as another fictional story.
In Kirovograd there have been hardly any attacks, but the military presence and the alarms are constant.
“You live all day waiting for an urgent message to reach you, for the alarm to sound.
And at night you are with one eye open and one closed.
You don't sleep, you don't rest ”, explains Ballesteros by video call.
With a serene countenance, he states that he is not considering joining the militias.
More information
Spaniards trapped in Ukraine: "There is no way out"
The Spanish Embassy contacted this sports analyst at the beginning of the invasion, but he and his partner decided not to join the convoys that evacuated a hundred Spaniards from kyiv three weeks ago.
They did not want to leave behind several relatives of Valeria, now older.
In addition, leaving the city now is "very dangerous."
“You feel the country a bit like yours.
I may be a bit half Spanish, half Ukrainian.
We are not planning to leave, unless the situation is catastrophic, totally unhealthy or we don't have anything to eat,” continues Ballesteros.
In a city without major supply problems, the couple pulls savings after Valeria, a language teacher, lost her job: most of her students have fled to other parts of Europe.
Alejandro Ballesteros, in video call, this Thursday.
The Government is aware of another 29 Spaniards who are still in Ukraine.
Most of them have decided to stay despite the danger, due to personal and family roots.
700 kilometers east of Kivorograd is Lviv, where thousands of refugees stop before crossing into Poland, and where Antonio Martino, an Asturian from Ribadesella, has his apartment.
From there he talks on the phone after arriving from the gym.
“I am here unconditionally.
There are people [in Spain] who don't understand it.
I put it down to the fact that I feel at home.
You are careful, yes, ”says Martino, 60, who has been working in Ukraine for two decades as a business promoter for Spanish companies.
In 2019, his mother, in her eighties, moved from Spain to Lviv.
When the Kremlin ordered her invasion, Martino traveled with her to Poland's Krakow to catch a plane back.
"Until he crossed the control I was not calm," he adds.
Afterwards, he returned to Ukraine.
Martino keeps his job and continues to share days with friends and relatives.
To his vital link with Ukraine is added the desire to mitigate the horror of war.
He interacts with medical and pharmaceutical personnel and has access to logistics networks: "I know a lot of people here, I can coordinate the help that comes from Spain," he offers.
Regarding the future, he is hopeful: his idea is to continue combining life in the Ukraine with that of Madrid, where his two adult children live, whom he plans to visit soon.
Attacks have intensified around Lviv in recent days.
For Martino, leaving the city would be relatively easy for the time being.
But the situation is very different for the rest of Spaniards stranded in the country.
According to Foreign sources, the crisis cabinet that provides coverage for the Spanish maintains "daily" contact with the compatriots who want to return to Spain.
The majority are in kyiv, in the central zone of the country, and some, the fewest, in other hotspots of the armed conflict.
Several have dual nationality.
The Embassy asked the Spaniards who wanted to leave the country to travel to the Ukrainian capital to join the two convoys chartered by the Government, on February 24 and 25.
It was the last rescue trip that could be organized.
"Right now there are no security conditions to be able to go and bring them," said the minister, José Manuel Albares, on Monday, due to the "risk" to their lives and those who come to their aid.
One of the last Spaniards who has managed to get out on his own is the 33-year-old Asturian Beni Brito.
A professional poker player, he lived in Vinnytsia, 220 kilometers from kyiv, with his Ukrainian wife and his four-year-old daughter since 2018.
The uncertainty that his political family was left with initially led them to continue in the country.
The resurgence of attacks in the region caused them to change their minds.
After not receiving help from the Embassy, he denounces, Brito intervened in the Spanish radio program
El Partidazo
de
Cope
asking for help.
The call was heard by Javier Fernández, a technology consultant based in Prague.
A 44-year-old from Madrid, he found another Asturian, Carlos Fernández, 50, thanks to a Telegram group made up of more Spaniards who had not been able to flee.
Carlos, who had lived in the Ukraine until a month ago and worked as a business consultant, also wanted to help the rest.
Since then, their collaboration has been constant and they created the HelptoUkraine platform to help Spaniards and Ukrainians to leave the country.
Through local contacts, they have facilitated the displacement of those, like Brito, who were unable to leave through the Foreign Ministry.
They have given them transportation by car, they have guided them to the available trains, they have indicated the most appropriate routes and, once out of Ukraine, they have paid for hotel nights and tickets back to Spain.
In total, 18 Spaniards have been able to leave thanks to their collaboration.
“If not for them, I would be hiding in a bunker or underground.
I will be eternally grateful to them,” says Brito by phone from Langreo.
Javier and Carlos continue trying to get those who have not yet been able to and want to get out of the Ukraine:
some 20 of the 30 who still remain in the country, according to both.
"In recent days it has been impossible for us to talk to them," laments Javier.
Among those who want to leave is David, about 45 years old, with whom they have not been able to contact for days.
He was in Gostomel, a few kilometers from Irpin, where dozens of civilians have been killed by Russian bombing.
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