'What next?' A Ukrainian mom wrestles with 'a million questions' over her family, country's fate

Iryna Yarmolenko is in Warsaw now, but like the more than 3 million Ukrainians who've become refugees over the past few weeks, she doesn't know for how long or what's next.

"It is a big question for everyone like me," said Yarmolenko, a 30-year-old mother. "I'm asking who I am right now, where I am, what I (am) going to do ... What next? What next?"

She didn't have a plan Feb. 24 when she woke up to the sound of rockets in the Kyiv region. She just knew she had to get her 5-year-old son and her mother to safety. Her family had been already planning a trip to Strasbourg, France, so as they prepared to head to the border she told him, "Oh, it looks like the travel will start earlier." 

For moms like her, the war in Ukraine has an added layer of stress and uncertainty as they worry about their children.

"When we cry, he couldn't understand why we cry because we are going to travel," she said. 

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The three made it safely to Poland after a 12-hour wait at the border. They spent the first few days in Lublin at the home of a couple Yarmolenko met through Host a Sister, one of multiple Facebook groups rallying around refugees. While the online community is primarily centered on travel and cultural exchange, its members jumped at the opportunity to help.

"They are very kind and very, very good people," Yarmalenko said of the care her family received.

Rest was more elusive.

"I couldn't take a rest because my body was shaking, and my brain wasn't ready, couldn't sleep," she said. "It was working like in shock." 

Her thoughts were flooded with everyone and everything happening at home.

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A mother's heartache

"As a mother, I connected with other moms, and they are frustrated," she said. "They felt bad mentally, psychologically, and their children, they're crying. Also they hear these bombs. They're terrified."

She said many people, including a close friend whose son used to play with her son, are essentially trapped in their homes without extra food, warmth or electricity, because it's not safe to leave.

"Civilians are being killed and maimed in what appear to be indiscriminate attacks, with Russian forces using explosive weapons with wide area effects in or near populated areas," Liz Throssell, spokesperson for the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights said March 11. "These include missiles, heavy artillery shells and rockets, airstrikes."

Multiple countries across Europe have accepted and offered free transportation and shelter to refugees who make it out safely.

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Yarmolenko worries for fellow Ukrainians who've stayed behind to fight, but she also thinks of Russian mothers who were not expecting to send their sons off to war.

"They have a mother ... they have their wives and children," she said, acknowledging casualties on both sides. "As a mother, I feel a very big pain because you (raised) someone who you love more than your life and because of ... Putin's authority and decision to come to my homeland and start (an) aggressive war with weapons, with blood, we are going to lose our best people, best soldiers, best sons, best men."

She urged Russian moms to protest the war.

'A million questions'

Yarmalenko has been watching news coverage every day. Her son has, too.

"He saw that our territory is damaged," she said. "For him, he doesn't understand how deep the situation (is). He just observes. He doesn't feel as if it happens with our house, our apartment."

Meanwhile, the windows of their apartment complex and her office building are blown out. It looks like a hurricane went through.

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She's read articles on how to explain what's happening to kids in simple, relatable terms.

"But I'm not sure that he should know about this," she said. "I'm not sure that he should know very much, very deep. Maybe I'm wrong, but I haven't decided yet."

It's one more unknown among "a million questions" on Yarmalenko's mind, along with where her son will go to kindergarten and what provisions will be made for these youngest refugees.

'I want to help'

For now, they've moved on to Warsaw, where her friend rented a temporary room for her family. Meanwhile, she says many Ukrainian women and children are in shelters with upwards of 100 people to a room.

"Before they (had) everything," she said. "They (had) their cars, their future, a big house or small house, a small apartment, but they (had) all of these. They (had) jobs. They used to live, and now they're like no one, nowhere."

Back home, Yarmalenko had been a city council member in Bucha, where she worked on equity and climate issues.

"I tried to write my colleagues and ask, from Europe, how I can be useful?" she said. "I couldn't just wait. ... I want to help my people." 

She's volunteering with relief efforts in Warsaw and working with friends from across Europe on drafting a program that she hopes will provide sustainable support for refugees, whose numbers keep growing.

She doesn't know whether her family will stay in Poland or come to the U.S. eventually. Yarmalenko would want to go home if it were safe, but she said she doesn't think it's possible with Russian President Vladimir Putin in power, whom she called "dangerous for all societies, not just for Ukraine."

"He doesn't want to stop," she said. "If I see the situation start (to be) more calm, for sure I want to come back for my house, for my normal life."

Contributing: Associated Press