Ukrainian refugee shares image of scratched car: "It was important to me to make it public"

Created: 06/16/2022Updated: 06/16/2022 10:06 am

By: Jana Stäbener

Ksenia (right) posts a picture of her scratched car on Instagram on June 6, drawing attention to hatred against Ukrainians in Germany.

© Private @kseniya_levadna

A Ukrainian refugee's car was scratched with the letter "Z".

She tells BuzzFeed News why she made the incident public.

According to the media service Integration, more than 800,000 people have fled from Ukraine to Germany since the start of the Ukraine war.

About 67 percent of them are women, like 28-year-old Ksenia, who has been living in the small town of Mengen near Ravensburg on Lake Constance since early March.

Together with a friend and her mother, she drove in a small blue car from Kharkiv to Slovakia to see friends and then to the small Swabian town in Germany.

Anything to escape the war of aggression that has been turning the lives of many in Ukraine upside down since February 24.

28-year-old Ksenia from Kharkiv has been living in Germany for about three months and has always felt safe here.

At least until last week.

On the night of June 5th, unknown persons carved the letter "Z" into the blue small car belonging to Ksenia's girlfriend, in which they and their mother had fled Ukraine in March 2022.

Ksenia shared a picture of the scratched car on Instagram the same day and wrote: "Yesterday our hometown Kharkiv was bombed, today our car looks like this.

What can we do to stop this sh*t?” The post went viral, with more than 5,000 people liking the picture.

We at

asked the young Ukrainian why she made the incident public in the first place and what her experience of fleeing in Germany has been like so far.

Ukrainian refugees in Germany: “We actually always felt completely safe”

In an interview with

on Monday, June 13, 2022, the Ukrainian ambassador Andriy Melnyk said: "Many Ukrainian refugees do not feel welcome in Germany".

He also criticized the government's Ukraine policy, but also drew a lot of criticism for his harsh words.

Many Ukrainians would feel welcome, contradicted users on Twitter.

Ksenia would certainly agree with that.

"Ever since we came to Germany in March, I've actually always had the feeling that we're getting a lot of support.

The people helped us so much to settle in and find an apartment, for example," the 28-year-old tells

.

She never expected that someone would suddenly scratch her car.

"We were a bit shocked, to be honest," she says.

Car scratched by Ukrainian refugees – police are investigating unknown persons

Immediately after the incident, they called the police: "Many people experience such things after their escape and are too afraid to talk about it.

I think that's wrong, because then you let those who do things like that win.

That's why it was important to me to make public what happened to us with the car," she says in an interview with

.

The police are now investigating unknown persons and are looking for those who damaged the car.

At the request of

on June 8, the Ravensburg police headquarters confirmed the incident.

In a press release dated

On June 7, it says: “Unknown people smeared a vehicle on Zeppelinstrasse in the night from Sunday to Monday.

The perpetrators used white paint to paint letters and lines on the car's paintwork.

There was damage to property amounting to several hundred euros.

Witnesses to the crime are asked to contact the Bad Saulgau police station on Tel. 07581/482-0.

" a spokesman for police headquarters told

So: It must have been both, because both white paint and scratches were found.

A sharp sharpie or something similar could be used as a crime tool.

He also states that the criminal police have taken over the investigation because it is "obviously a case of politically motivated crime".

Politically motivated violence in particular is often accompanied by extremism.

A report by the Office for the Protection of the Constitution recently showed that more and more people in Germany are extremists.

Ukrainians in Germany: "Hate and racism have no place in society"

One can only speculate who it was.

"What I find strange is that the Z on our car has a line in the middle," says Ksenia.

The typical Russian symbol, which can also be seen on tanks, has no line.

She therefore suspects that the perpetrators must have been at least in a German school.

"But of course it's a symbol of Russian armed aggression on our car." Loyalty to Putin is shown online with the mysterious "Z" mark - here we explain what it means.

Ksenia once again emphasizes how important it is to her that this act is made public.

"I want the person who did this to understand that hatred and racism have no place in society," she told

.

She says that she gets a lot of messages from Germans who can't believe that something like this is happening.

You've seen a lot of willingness to help.

"But I also got a lot of messages from Ukrainians from different countries, to whom something similar happened." Many of them wouldn't dare to call the police, says Ksenia - and she wants to set a good example for them.

also read

Melnyk puts pressure on Scholz because of his trip to Kyiv: "The visit must be groundbreaking"

Putin's "Hunger Plan" in Three Acts: Historian Declares Next "Stage of War" and Predicts Unrest

Escape from the Ukraine: “The fact that we now had to leave our home again is tough”

Ksenia was born in the city of Sverdlovsk in the Luhansk region of Ukraine, which has been at war since 2014.

In 2011 she came to Kharkiv and began her studies there.

Her mother then followed in 2014.

"It's tough that we have to leave our homeland again.

But Kharkiv is very dangerous – you can't live there anymore at the moment.” In the Ukraine she worked in a communications agency – but when the war started, it didn't have many jobs anymore.

Here in Germany she now works as a piano teacher in two schools and helps Ukrainian children to settle down well in Germany.

In an Instagram post on Saturday, June 11, Ksenia reviews the incident and encourages openly dealing with hate crime: "Our case regarding the Z inscriptions on the car was handed over to the criminal police.

We have repeatedly emphasized that this is not just hooliganism, but hate crime and racism." She received many messages from people who had experienced similar things: "Many of these people did not contact the police because they felt unsafe or simply afraid had not to be supported [...] get loud!"

The Ukraine war has now lasted more than three months.

Here are 9 things you can continue to do to help people