As of: February 28, 2024, 2:56 p.m
By: Peter Sieben
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The Umanskas fled to Germany before the war and now live in Wuppertal.
Shortly before Putin's obligatory speech to the nation, they made it clear: their future now lies abroad.
Wuppertal – Emilia chats happily, praises the chocolate cake on the kitchen table and talks about school.
She has no problem with the German language.
“I’ve been here for a long time,” she explains.
Time is relative.
For the six-year-old, more than a third of her life has passed since she left Ukraine.
For mother Olga and father Serhii, however, many things are still quite unfamiliar.
The Umanska family now lives in an apartment building in Wuppertal; the war drove them from their homeland.
Putin's State of the Nation Speech: "Everything he says is fake"
Olga Umanska with her daughter Emilia: The family came to Germany from Ukraine two years ago.
© Peter Sieben
Russian President Vladimir Putin will soon give his obligatory speech to the nation again and Serhii is already thinking about it with horror.
“Putin just talks crap, everything he says is fake,” he says in a mix of German and English.
Putin will probably justify the war again and it will probably become clear: the Ukraine war is far from over.
For the Umanskas one thing is certain: their future now lies abroad.
The family was living in Chernihiv in northern Ukraine when the war began.
The border with Russia is less than 100 kilometers away.
Serhii remembers how the first tanks arrived.
Then he said to his wife: “You have to leave here immediately.” He himself stayed, volunteered for territorial defense, passed on messages to Ukrainian soldiers and helped with the food supply.
Five days of escape from Ukraine to Germany
And an odyssey began for Olga and Emilia.
They traveled west by car for five days.
On board: Olga's mother, a friend with her five-month-old baby, two dogs and a few belongings.
The first bombs were already falling.
“On the way we were often checked by Ukrainian soldiers,” says Olga.
The same procedure over and over again: roll down the window, show your passport – and recite a series of specific Ukrainian words.
For example, the word Polunytsya, which translates as strawberry.
“Russians can’t pronounce it properly.
They dislocate their jaws,” explains Serhii, making a grimace: “That’s what it looks like.
Any spy would give themselves away with their accent.”
Olga still remembers not being able to sleep for the first 24 hours on the run.
“I had to stay awake and keep driving, there was a huge convoy of cars on the way.” The small group first came via Poland to Gera in Thuringia and finally to Düsseldorf.
Until then, Olga only knew Germany as a tourist.
As an actress in a theater company and an agent for an artists' agency, she was often in the country.
“But that’s something completely different,” she says.
Initially, six of them lived in a small apartment with other refugees from Ukraine.
They had no furniture, no dishes, no bedding.
“Luckily, people from Germany gave us a lot of gifts and helped us move in,” says Olga.
The temporary accommodation soon became too cramped and it was hardly possible to get another apartment in Düsseldorf.
She finally finds what she is looking for in Wuppertal.
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Russia's missiles are destroying the Ukrainian homeland little by little
Shortly after the start of the war in Ukraine: A Russian rocket left a huge crater after impact.
© Private/Umanska
Her husband Serhii was only aware of all of this indirectly.
Every day he had to watch his homeland being destroyed piece by piece.
“This was our neighbors’ house, this was the supermarket in our neighborhood,” he says, showing pictures on his cell phone.
To see: smoking ruins, collapsed walls, huge craters from rocket impacts.
“The sirens were constantly wailing because of the rockets.
At some point you no longer even notice it,” he says.
And the Russian soldiers sometimes drove through the villages and fired machine guns around for no reason.
“Just like that,” he says, showing pictures of houses whose walls are riddled with bullet holes.
Large parts of the Umanska family's homeland in Ukraine have been destroyed.
© Private/Umanska
“Putin won’t stop.
He wants more war.”
Olga can't understand why people do such things.
She has friends and relatives in Russia, and a cousin lives in Moscow.
“I wrote them messages, told them that our friends were being killed.
But they think the war is right or say: There's nothing we can do about it." She's now not getting any answers from Russia.
“Many people are also afraid,” says Serhii.
“When Putin gives his speech, they applaud.
Nobody will do anything against him.” He fears: “Putin won’t stop.
He wants more war.” That's why Serhii traveled from Ukraine at some point, and the family was reunited exactly on Emilia's birthday.
“Our daughter only has a future here,” says Olga.
She sometimes dreams of her homeland, of a quiet, happy life there, of her plans.
“Without the war I would never have left.
But Putin destroyed everything.” And yet she is grateful and happy that she can live in peace in Germany.
“Not everyone was so lucky.”