2 young families flee war-torn Ukraine, staying in Cranberry
Two young Ukrainian families are relieved to be watching the deer and chipmunks frolic on their hosts’ Cranberry Township lawn, and not wondering where the next bomb will fall.
Anna Kisel and her sons Matvey, 12, and Illia, 10, and Irena Tkachenko and her sons Ivan, 14, and Yegor, 9, arrived in the U.S. two weeks ago to stay at the home of their friend, Yana, and her husband, Maksym Yarmatsevych, who moved from Ukraine to Butler County 11 years ago.
The two grateful mothers on Thursday talked about their harrowing ordeal when Russian bombs began raining down on their hometown of Kharkov at 4 a.m. Feb. 24.
“It happened at night,” Kisel said through Maksym’s mother, Lyudmyla Martin, who translated for the families. “Everywhere we heard explosions and everyone was very afraid and don’t know what to do. Should we run or stay in our home?”
Kisel recalled her thoughts as she helped her sons climb down a ladder into their building’s unfinished basement.
“Instead of waking up and sending the kids to school, we woke up to a war,” she said.
Matvey recalls feeling terrified at the first explosion.
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