**Ухилянт рыгал весь побег, но вышел в Молдавию — Transcript & Summary | SozAI**
Source: https://sozai.app/transcript/deserter-vomited-escape-moldova/

A personal escape story from war-torn Ukraine via Transnistria, with practical tips on planning routes and safety.

## Key Takeaways

- Preparation with multiple routes and contingency plans is crucial for safe escape.
- Having a trustworthy person outside who knows your route and can call for help is vital.
- Using phones for navigation and communication is feasible and helpful in certain border areas.
- Minimal, lightweight gear can be sufficient for such a journey.
- The psychological toll of war and witnessing violence can be a strong motivator to flee.

## What the video covers

- The narrator stayed in a war zone for over three years before deciding to escape.
- Initial plan was to flee by boat to Romania, but changed to crossing via Transnistria due to risks and costs.
- Emphasizes the importance of having multiple starting points and route options to avoid checkpoints.
- Recommends using phones for navigation and communication, especially in populated border areas.
- Stresses the need for a reliable contact on the outside to monitor the journey and call for help if needed.
- Describes the challenges faced traveling from a southern city to Odessa and then toward the border.
- Shares a harrowing story of a friend beaten by draft officers, reinforcing the urgency to escape.
- Details the slow, cautious nighttime movement through fields and tree belts to avoid detection.
- Mentions minimal gear used: sneakers, dark sportswear, and lightweight camouflage windbreakers.
- Highlights the psychological impact and motivation to escape before losing more time in war.

## Chapters

1. 00:00 Introduction and initial hesitation
2. 03:12 Escape planning and route options
3. 06:31 Departure from Odessa and border approach
4. 09:46 Nighttime movement and challenges
5. 13:11 Border guards and evasion tactics
6. 19:49 Gear and preparation details
7. 25:23 Psychological impact and motivation
8. 32:55 Reflections and concluding thoughts

Answers

## Questions about this video

What was the narrator's original escape plan?

The narrator initially planned to escape by boat across the sea to Romania but changed plans due to risks and costs.

Why is having multiple starting points important?

Multiple starting points and route options help avoid checkpoints or patrols and allow flexibility if the original route is compromised.

How does the narrator suggest using phones during the escape?

Phones should be used for navigation and communication, especially in populated border areas like Transnistria, where tracking is difficult.

## Full Transcript — Download SRT & Markdown

00:00

Speaker A

Basically, my story starts like everyone else's. The war started, and I didn't have the sense to leave right away. Maybe there was some patriotic hope, like everyone had, that it wouldn't last long. Somewhere, my parents were discouraging me, saying

00:14

Speaker A

not to risk it and not to try leaving. Like, people are drowning in the Tisa river and things like that. And, in short, I ended up sitting there for three and a half long years from the start of the war until the moment I

00:25

Speaker A

left. Uh, I left last year at the beginning of summer, on Friday the thirteenth. Such an interesting number; for some it’s unlucky, but for me personally, it turned out to be very lucky. And I want to start, perhaps,

00:37

Speaker A

with the preparation, with a couple of tips. I highly recommend that you prepare at least three starting points.

00:44

Speaker A

This is your main starting point, and this is another point before your starting point. Maybe everything will work out okay and you'll start from where you intended. Maybe you won't be able to get there, and you'll have to

00:54

Speaker A

get off earlier. Maybe there will be a checkpoint or people at your starting point, and you'll have to go further past it. Therefore, I believe you need at least three starting points. And from each of these points, have two

01:07

Speaker A

more route options to the exit point. If you suddenly encounter people, a patrol, or a checkpoint on your route, you must be ready to turn left or right, and you must know exactly where to turn. Specifically on the Transnistria

01:21

Speaker A

section, yes, for those who don't know, I left via Transnistria. I believe you can and should use your phone. Those who know the area know that there are many settlements stretched along the entire border. And thousands of people

01:35

Speaker A

live right there on the border. Therefore, tracking you down by phone there is practically unrealistic. There are thousands of subscribers there. So, in this area, I believe we should use our phones without any issues. And while moving along your route, you need

01:49

Speaker A

to constantly monitor your location. So, the next important point, which I don't remember anyone mentioning on any broadcasts, but which helped me in certain moments. Uh, you need to have a reliable person on the shore, so to

02:04

Speaker A

speak. There must be someone sitting at home with a phone, who isn't sleeping or drinking, and who is ready at any moment to answer your call for help. If you are going through the mountains, they must know where you are. They must

02:17

Speaker A

know your exact route, where you want to cross, how you want to cross, and how long it will take, so that in case of anything, they can call rescuers from our side or even rescuers from, say, the Romanian side. This person

02:30

Speaker A

should have the numbers of your loved ones, for example, a close friend. It is good if they have your parents' numbers so they can warn them if you let them know there's trouble. And one more important point that played a role

02:43

Speaker A

in my story. This person must have the phone numbers for the TCK offices in the area where you plan to go out. So that in case of failure, your family can start looking for you immediately, so you don't get lost in those TCKs and

02:57

Speaker A

then suddenly turn up on the front in Donbas without a phone. At that time, a year ago, you could easily call the TCK and ask if they had taken in a certain person or not. I don't know how it is

03:12

Speaker A

now, but a year ago, it worked. Let's move on to the story itself. My first plan was to go by boat across the sea to Romania. I'm sure you've already heard about such stories. More than one or two people have already proven that

03:23

Speaker A

it is possible. I am also convinced that it is a realistic option. But as it happened, my partner got cold feet, and another acquaintance of mine was almost caught by TCK officers right by his house at that moment. He ran away

03:37

Speaker A

hard, hid in the reeds; he lived near the river and sat there in the reeds for hours until they left. And after that, he also decided to leave and suggested the PMR option to me, which I agreed to, since it is much cheaper

03:50

Speaker A

than buying a boat and motor to try and go by sea. I'm a sailor myself, not some armchair sailor, but on merchant ships; I sailed on yachts, sailed on yachts across the Black Sea at night. I understand how it works and believe

04:05

Speaker A

that going to Romania by boat is very realistic. But we decided to try our luck with the PMR after all. We got together and prepared. Regarding gear, nothing special. We spent a long time planning to buy something, like serious

04:21

Speaker A

backpacks, boots, camouflage, but in the end, we settled for regular sneakers, dark sportswear, and—for those who know, you know—windbreakers that are very thin and light, and you can even fold them into a small pouch.

04:35

Speaker A

Very compact, camouflage windbreakers. In short, yes, we practically didn't spend anything on gear. We packed up and left. We went from a southern city to Odesa first. That wasn't easy either. At that time, a year ago, checkpoints

04:50

Speaker A

were already firmly in place. And of course, you'll ask how to get to the starting point. Things worked out for me in a way I consider not the worst option. An acquaintance of mine who is a cop—not a policeman, but a real cop

05:03

Speaker A

—drove us there. It had to be some corrupt trash who would drive us through the checkpoints for a hundred bucks without any issues. At that time, it worked. We got into his car and drove off. And to be honest, nobody

05:16

Speaker A

even asked to see his badge anywhere. But just in case, he assured us that if we were stopped, he’d say we were either staff or prisoners, and we’d pass the checkpoints easily. We arrived in Odessa first and stayed with a

05:31

Speaker A

friend of a friend there. A situation occurred there that shocked me so much and finally convinced me that I needed to escape this concentration camp. We met the friend we were planning to stay with, but he met us beaten up, missing

05:46

Speaker A

his front teeth, and with a broken arm. As it turned out, the draft officers caught him the day before we arrived while he was coming home from work at night; he resisted, they knocked his teeth out, broke his arm, and hit him

05:58

Speaker A

in the face quite a bit. But he happened to meet a decent doctor who didn't sign him off as fit for service.

06:05

Speaker A

They let him go home, telling him they’d catch him again in a month once he healed. That, of course, shocked me. Imagine, the guy is about 25, a young lad, all his front teeth knocked out. Can you imagine how much

06:18

Speaker A

money it will take to fix that? The cheapest teeth in Ukraine cost, well, probably 100 bucks each. And that's of the absolute worst quality. And this is for the rest of his life. After that, of course, there were no doubts left

06:31

Speaker A

about trying to get out. And the next day we set off with that police officer toward, well, how should I put it, I can’t say exactly. Anyway, we moved toward our starting point from Odessa.

06:44

Speaker A

We passed several checkpoints. Quite successfully, nothing unusual. We got dropped off. We were dropped off in the evening. It was Thursday evening, the twelfth of June, last year. We were dropped off in a tree belt about twenty kilometers from the border. And we

07:02

Speaker A

quickly moved away from our drop-off point. We tried to get away as fast as possible, just in case anyone saw us.

07:08

Speaker A

Naturally, we picked a moment when there were no cars on the road. We got off, moved away from the road, and slowly headed toward the border. The connection there was actually fine. We used our phones the whole time. I’ve

07:21

Speaker A

said before that I believe in this area, in the area of the Transnistria border, you can use your phones without any problems. For the first hour, we moved briskly, but then it got dark and became harder. We weren't in much of a

07:33

Speaker A

hurry, moving at, I don't know, maybe 3 kilometers an hour. We moved like that all night with breaks, slowly from one tree belt to the next. We didn't go out onto the road, of course. And the tree belts are pretty overgrown at this time

07:47

Speaker A

of year. The crops in the fields were at least knee-high already. Uh, wheat is growing, corn is growing. So, you can move just fine either through the tree belt itself or betw

07:59

Speaker A

well, walking through branches is definitely harder. That’s how we moved until dawn. At dawn, we made what you could call a sprint, because it had gotten light, and you can move much faster. At night, we tried to move

08:12

Speaker A

without using phones. I mean, we checked the route, but didn't use flashlights. As soon as it was light, we sped up and covered as much as we could, probably somewhere in the window between 5:00 a.m. and 8:00 or 9:00 a.m.

08:25

Speaker A

Later on, things start getting busy in that border zone. At this time of year, from spring to autumn, it's just fields there. The fields are already being worked. There's a ton of machinery, a ton of people, cows, sheep. And moving

08:39

Speaker A

became, of course, more difficult. But on the other hand, we weren't really afraid of, uh, drones. We understood that with all that activity in the fields, the border guards definitely wouldn't be drone-monitoring anything there. And we didn't see any trail

08:53

Speaker A

cameras, and, in principle, we weren't afraid of them at that moment. And I believe that they are rarely found in those areas where many people live, where these fields are located, where tractors work the land, and so on. By

09:07

Speaker A

around lunch, we had to lay low because very close by, the tree belts became very sparse, and we had to literally crawl. Tractors were working nearby, and we would lay low for half an hour, an hour, or two hours, waiting for them

09:23

Speaker A

to finish that piece of the field near us and leave. Then we’d quickly move on. Anyone who has been in these areas knows what it looks like. Anyone who hasn't, just take a look at a map.

09:33

Speaker A

Everything there is roughly like a chessboard, and you can move calmly along the tree belt. You can pass along the tree belt carefully. So, we reached a point where we had just a few kilometers left to the border. We took

09:46

Speaker A

a serious break. It was already about 4:00 p.m. So, we had left at 9:00 p.m.

09:52

Speaker A

the previous day, and by 4:00 p.m. the next day, we were already almost at the border. Um, here, perhaps it's worth, uh, returning to the gear. I forgot to say what we took with us. Um, here it’s worth saying a couple of words

10:08

Speaker A

about my partner. I personally took the bare minimum with me. As little as possible. Water, socks, underwear, a clean t-shirt, and shorts. A couple of Snickers bars, yogurts, uh, band-aids, yeah, basically that. Oh, and wire cutters. And that was basically it.

10:26

Speaker A

Nothing else, I didn't take anything else with me. I made a mistake that I ask you not to make. I didn't check my partner's backpack. My partner and I had known each other for a long time, but we weren't exactly close friends.

10:39

Speaker A

And this man was older than me. Let’s just say I was under thirty, and he was already over thirty. I considered him a mature, sensible person who understood what he was getting into. So, I decided not to check up on him. As it turned

10:54

Speaker A

out later, this genius packed a towel and not just spare sneakers, but spare boots that weighed a ton. He brought along a huge pile of completely unnecessary things. I was just stunned when I found out he had brought a towel

11:11

Speaker A

. That was my mistake, of course. Don't make the same one. You must check your partner's backpack to see what they are taking and carrying. He also didn't take care of his documents, which later played a role. My documents were in a

11:25

Speaker A

small waist bag, and in my backpack, as I mentioned, just a change of clothes for the start and that's it. There was nothing else. My backpack weighed, I don't know, five, maybe a little more kilograms. Purely because of the water.

11:36

Speaker A

We took about three or four liters of water per person, no more. We hiked, and then we were returning to the border. Keep an eye on what your partner puts in their backpack. I didn't check, I didn't look, I hoped he

11:50

Speaker A

was a mature, sensible person who understood where he was going. But as it turned out, that wasn't the case.

11:56

Speaker A

While I packed underwear, socks, a t-shirt, and shorts because it was summer, planning to cross over, change into clean clothes, and head to Moldova with my documents. My partner, for some reason, packed heavy boots—well, not exactly military, but just heavy boots.

12:18

Speaker A

He brought a towel, a large bath-sized towel. Why did he do that? Well, he couldn't even explain to me why he took it, other than him being so neat and tidy. He thought he’d easily cross the border, check into some hotel, and

12:32

Speaker A

pull out his towel to dry off with his nice, clean towel. And he decided it was a good idea to bring it along. His backpack was quite large, and somewhere at the bottom were his documents, his passport, and so on. As for me, all my

12:47

Speaker A

documents were in my waist pouch. I was ready to drop my backpack at any moment . Mm, basically, we started running, we made it—let me go back once more—we made it through the tree belts from 9:00 PM Thursday until 4:00 PM Friday

13:02

Speaker A

the thirteenth. We covered about 20 km through the tree belt. I wouldn't say it was very difficult, it was alright.

13:11

Speaker A

We weren't moving very fast. We were moving at a relaxed pace at night and especially in the morning. Morning, dawn—that’s the best moment when you can cover a great distance. When it's already light, you can see where you're going. And people aren't driving

13:26

Speaker A

on the field roads yet, no farm machinery is out, and nobody is grazing cows. So, in that window between 4, 5, 6, 7 AM, you can cover a lot of ground.

13:37

Speaker A

So, we reached about a two-kilometer zone from the border, rested, gathered ourselves, started, and ran. Right from the start, my partner began to fall behind me. After 10 meters, he was behind by about a meter. After 100 meters, he was already 10 meters behind

13:52

Speaker A

. After 500 meters, he was already 20 or 30 meters behind. But I realize that waiting for him or dragging him along is risky, I might end up stuck at the border myself. We don't see anyone around, no border guards, no towers. We

14:05

Speaker A

only see cameras. There are large cameras on tall poles looking at the border. Mm, anyway, I’m running and I see a ditch in front of me. The ditch is about 2x2 meters, crumbled, so crossing it wasn't a problem. I crossed

14:19

Speaker A

it in, well, 30 seconds, less than a minute. I mean, I jumped in a bit, took a breath, climbed up, and got out just fine. But about 20 or 50 meters to our right, I saw them installing brand-new

14:31

Speaker A

barbed wire. It wasn't very high. Mm, maybe waist-high, maybe higher. They were installing the wire before the ditch, and they just hadn't reached the spot where we were crossing yet. And after that, there was also a huge stretch where there was no wire yet.

14:48

Speaker A

Anyway, I crossed the border, climbed to the other side, and walked on to the next tree belt where we had agreed to wait it out. That was our designated point to reach after crossing, because we’d heard stories that border guards

15:02

Speaker A

could cross the border themselves. I’m walking on the PMR side now, I turn around, and I see that my partner has also crossed the ditch. He had fallen behind me by about 50 or 100 meters. I decide that I will reach the

15:15

Speaker A

tree belt and wait for him there. I reach the tree belt and practically collapse. Well, I didn't puke back then , but I did a little later, because running through a field of wheat or corn—on our side, I think it was corn

15:29

Speaker A

, and on the PMR side it was wheat—is incredibly difficult. It's like walking waist-deep in water. You get exhausted very quickly, very quickly. Prepare yourselves physically, train, do squats , jump rope. If you have the opportunity, go for runs. If you don't

15:46

Speaker A

have the chance, well, strengthen your legs in any way possible, because that is your survival. That has been true throughout the ages. Feet have always fed the man. I reached the tree line and just collapsed from exhaustion. I

15:58

Speaker A

caught my breath for a minute or two, stood up, looked back to where my partner was, and couldn't see him. I simply didn't have the strength to run back to him. I fell again, lay there for a few seconds, breathing heavily. I

16:10

Speaker A

tried standing one more time, looked back to where he had been, and instead of just my partner's silhouette, I saw three. I realized there shouldn't be three silhouettes there, which meant things had gone wrong. I quickly started moving deeper into the PMR

16:25

Speaker A

territory along the tree line. I just couldn't run anymore. I walked with my last bit of strength, cleared one tree line, and then it turned right—like a square, as they usually do along fields —so I started heading left and walked

16:40

Speaker A

another 100 meters along that next stretch. And I had a clear view of the spot where I had been sitting and waiting for my partner. I saw border guards scouring the exact place where I’d been sitting, where they’d

16:52

Speaker A

spotted me before I hid in the trees. And that was at least 500 meters deep into the PMR territory. No border guards, no trenches, no fences, no markers, absolutely nothing. It’s just an open field, and there's nothing there. Nobody patrols it, no cameras.

17:13

Speaker A

So, our border guards cross the border with total impunity and fearlessness, walking half a kilometer or a kilometer deep with weapons in their hands. They had automatic rifles. They aren't afraid of it. I don't know if they have

17:27

Speaker A

some kind of agreement, or if they just know that the PMR forces aren't there.

17:31

Speaker A

Because at the time, I wondered how it was possible for a soldier from one state to walk into another state's territory with a rifle. But they can.

17:41

Speaker A

Well, anyway, I moved further along the tree lines into the PMR, realizing I couldn't walk anymore. I was just completely drained. I fell down, started feeling nauseous, threw up a bit, laid there catching my breath, listened carefully, crawled to the edge

17:55

Speaker A

of the tree line, looked around, and realized nobody seemed to be chasing me anymore. I gathered they lost me back at that first tree line 500 meters from the ribbon, where I saw the last border guard. I changed my clothes and puked

18:09

Speaker A

again, throwing up all over the clothes I was wearing. I wiped myself with them , rinsed off with some water, and changed. I had brought a white t-shirt and shorts with me. I put on clean clothes and headed toward a village on

18:22

Speaker A

the Moldovan side. Oh, wait, from the PMR side, I reached a village and walked out to some store. I mean, my plan was to play it off as a local. In principle, it’s not written on your face that you’re a runner. So I

18:34

Speaker A

approached some guys. I should note that at that moment, I wasn't thinking clearly because I hadn't slept all night. I was severely exhausted and terrified by the whole situation. And I just walked up to the men I saw. Two

18:47

Speaker A

men were standing by the shop near their cars. I said, "I'm from Ukraine, so here's the deal, I need to get to Moldova." Uh, to which the guy replied, "100 bucks, let's go." I gave him 100 bucks. We got into the car, I grabbed a

19:00

Speaker A

bag, and I was throwing up the whole way. While we were driving, I kept feeling nauseous. I felt absolutely terrible. I was completely worn out.

19:08

Speaker A

That last two-kilometer sprint really hit my health hard and led, spoiler alert, to a very unpleasant situation that happened to me later in Chisinau, forcing me to make another escape. Uh, anyway, I drove toward Moldova. The guy drove me there, taking me across some

19:27

Speaker A

bridge. Where I was, I didn't even take out my phone anymore, because I wasn't in any state to do so. I only messaged the person, as I mentioned, who was, so to speak, waiting for me at home. I

19:39

Speaker A

wrote that I had crossed the border, that I was okay, and that the second person hadn't crossed. And that they needed to start looking for him. As I said at the beginning, you have to be prepared for this, so that they start

19:49

Speaker A

looking for you the moment that information comes in, so someone can start calling the draft offices. I don't know about now, but back then it was possible. You could just call the draft office and ask, "Has so-and-so been brought in to you?""Yes, he has."

20:03

Speaker A

That’s it, you at least know where that person is and, if necessary, where to get them if they manage to get out.

20:09

Speaker A

There will be information about this now, too. Uh, he drove me across some bridge with a checkpoint, where some real Soviet-style officers were standing. Old, old Soviet types, the kind you don't really see anymore. They didn't stop us, they let us through. So

20:27

Speaker A

he drove me to some field and says: " Alright, get out here, head over to that village, take a taxi there, and go to Chisinau." And so I did. I got out, threw up again, walked to that other

20:38

Speaker A

village, took a regular taxi, paid again, and made it to Chisinau. I checked into a small hotel. You know the rest; those who know, know. Stefan Voda, uh, I forgot what it's called.

20:49

Speaker A

They have that Moldovan term, ah, border police, I think, for processing documents and so on. What happened to my partner? The most interesting part.

20:59

Speaker A

As I found out later, a few days later he was able to reach out, called me, and said that we were returning to the start on the Ukrainian side, about a kilometer or two from the border line.

21:11

Speaker A

We started off, running together. After 100 meters, he felt like he was done for. His legs wouldn't lift anymore, he was exhausted, it was very hard for him to run, he was practically walking. And , well, he covered, let's say, I don't

21:28

Speaker A

know, those who run will understand, at a pace of, let's say, 6-7 minutes per kilometer, that's not fast at all.

21:36

Speaker A

Maybe, no, no, I'm mistaken. The pace was maybe around 4 minutes per kilometer. Well, meaning we were running, trying to run a little faster than a regular jog. So, I don't know, in km/h, maybe 12-13 km/h. So, well, at

21:51

Speaker A

that pace a person can run a couple of kilometers on a straight path, but through a field, through a clearing, especially through wheat, it's a completely different story. Anyway, he started to fall behind significantly, and he started feeling terrible. I went

22:04

Speaker A

ahead and jumped across the border. After a while, he reached the same spot , climbed over the border, and ended up in that wheat field on the PMR side, after which he heard the voices of border guards behind him yelling: "Stop

22:19

Speaker A

, or we'll shoot!" He turned to face them, saw them, realized he was screwed , and at that moment tried to drop his heavy backpack with that towel and those boots. And that's when he made one, no, two huge mistakes. First, he

22:35

Speaker A

decided not to buy a proper backpack to save some money. I, meanwhile, had a small military-grade backpack. I didn't buy it on purpose; it was just there.

22:44

Speaker A

He just had some basic backpack from the market. And it didn't have straps to fasten it across his chest. So instead, he just tied the straps in a knot on his chest. Plus, his documents were buried somewhere at the bottom.

22:57

Speaker A

Anyway, he saw those border guards and started trying to untie the knots on the straps. They wouldn't come undone.

23:04

Speaker A

He made one final, powerful dash forward. Also, by that time it was 4:00 PM; we’d been moving all night, and he was just exhausted. He hadn't eaten well the day before. He was drinking beer, smoking cigarettes, and downing

23:18

Speaker A

coffee from the stress, obviously. Basically, the guy wasn't prepared, hadn't eaten properly, had no energy, and he just plain passed out. Already across the line, maybe 100 or 200 meters on the other side, they caught up, grabbed him, dragged him away, and

23:36

Speaker A

he woke up back on our side. They gave him a little beating and took him first to the border post, then to the TCK.

23:44

Speaker A

It's a sad story, but when I told it, I wondered if he held a grudge against me —no, he didn't. We still talk to this day, and he's doing just fine. Now I'll tell you how it turned out that he's

23:54

Speaker A

doing okay. There was absolutely nothing I could have done to help him in that situation. I was on my last legs myself. For those last 1,000 meters on the other side, I was just walking away from the border guards. I

24:08

Speaker A

couldn't even run anymore. It's unlikely I could have helped him anyway . But he ended up with a very interesting and fortunate story. Anyway , he gets taken to a training center, and the SBU starts grilling him: "Who

24:23

Speaker A

did you buy the route from? How did you go? Give up your partner," and so on.

24:30

Speaker A

To which he says, "Okay, I'll..." I don't know, maybe he was in such an exhausted state, or maybe they pressured him too hard. In short, he tells them, "Yes, I have some information; I'll tell you everything." The SBU officer questioning him gets

24:45

Speaker A

happy and says, "Great, I'm sending you ...""...to some disciplinary battalion located right there near the border, not far away.""And then in a day, I'll come to see you, and you'll give me all the details, sign the papers, and I'll

24:58

Speaker A

make sure you don't get sent to the front." He says, "Yeah, okay, sounds great." Uh, for him, of course, this only makes things better. They take him to this...to this penal unit, some kind of base. I mean, from the moment of

25:13

Speaker A

capture until he ended up at the unit, literally a day had passed. So, just so you understand the speed, how quickly a person goes from the front line to a unit, with a signed medical exam, already a soldier. Literally one day

25:28

Speaker A

passed, and he was already at that unit . He didn’t act up, he behaved normally, uh, agreed to cooperate and so on, didn’t raise suspicion, and naturally, was in very poor condition.

25:40

Speaker A

Exhausted from the crossing, which is why they were perhaps more lenient with him, and they let him make a call. Now, it’s important to note: you must memorize someone’s number by heart, in case they take your phone, so you

25:54

Speaker A

can borrow someone else’s to call home—parents, friends, a girlfriend —and tell them where you are, what your options are, whether you can jump the fence or not. If you can, then when and where, and so on. You need to know

26:08

Speaker A

that number exactly by heart. And you must have someone on the outside who can actually help you. Someone who can drive up to your unit or your recruitment center. Perhaps a woman, a wife, who can get through checkpoints

26:21

Speaker A

without any trouble. And that’s exactly what happened with my partner. He managed to communicate where he was.

26:28

Speaker A

We quickly organized a car through our mutual acquaintances to the place where he was. The unit wasn't heavily guarded ; it was just out in a field, since they were being bombed heavily at the time, and they kept everyone in these

26:42

Speaker A

field camps in some forest. And, well, there wasn't really a clear fence there . And as they were shuttling them back and forth to the recruitment center, once he realized where he was and near which city, he managed to report it. We

26:55

Speaker A

sent a car for him, and it waited at the agreed-upon spot. After he’d been sitting there for a week, on his day off, he managed to sneak out unnoticed.

27:05

Speaker A

The commanders were either drinking or had gone home. In short, he hadn't drawn any attention to himself all week . He was kind of frail by nature. He felt sick after the crossing. Basically , nobody thought he would try to run.

27:18

Speaker A

But he succeeded. He escaped from that unit, reached the car, and safely made it back to his hometown, where he still sits to this day, never leaving the house. After an experience like that, he doesn't even consider a second

27:32

Speaker A

escape attempt. He decided to sit and wait for the war to end, not try anything else, and dabble in crypto, which isn't going very well, I think.

27:42

Speaker A

Such a sad story. Something interesting happened to me back in Moldova. I made it to Moldova, to Chisinau. I checked into a small hotel after the crossing and got in touch with a couple of people. They explained that I needed to

27:57

Speaker A

go to Stefan Voda. I think there was also some kind of online application I had to submit. Anyway, I found out what to do and checked into the hotel, but I was vomiting the whole time. I have no

28:09

Speaker A

idea how they even let me into the hotel. I arrived all covered in vomit, exhausted, with bags under my eyes, in a terrible state, but they let me in.

28:18

Speaker A

They gave me a room. I spent the whole evening in the room throwing up. I couldn't drink water, I couldn't eat anything. I was suffering from exhaustion, my stomach had crashed after such a grueling crossing. Around 9:00 PM, and remember the crossing was

28:32

Speaker A

at 4:00 PM on Friday the 13th. At 9:00 PM I just felt that my heart was fluttering and I was feeling really terrible. I was hyperventilating. I mean, from the moment I crossed, except for when I got into a taxi or checked

28:49

Speaker A

into the hotel, I had to pull myself together to look normal. But the rest of the time, once I got into the hotel room, the hyperventilation would start.

29:00

Speaker A

I was just breathing like this, vomiting, out of breath, and couldn't even drink water. I decided that I needed to call an ambulance. I was feeling pretty lousy. This wasn't normal. My body had probably never experienced that kind of stress before.

29:15

Speaker A

In short, I started getting scared. Hours had passed and it wasn't going away. I couldn't eat or drink anything.

29:20

Speaker A

Dehydration was setting in. I decided to call the ambulance, and they arrived . I was emotional and they immediately asked, "What happened to you?""Are you on drugs or something?" I said, "No, I just escaped from Ukraine, I'm exhausted, I ran across the border, it

29:34

Speaker A

was tough, it's a mess.""Give me a shot ." They gave me some kind of injection.

29:38

Speaker A

Some kind of sedative. I felt better for a few hours. But a few hours later, I started feeling absolutely terrible again. It was getting late into the night. I realized I might not survive the rest of the night. I call an

29:54

Speaker A

ambulance again and head to the Chisinau hospital, where things started getting completely insane. The Chisinau hospital is the worst hospital I have ever been to. Ukrainian medicine felt like heaven after that, because the way they treat people there is like they're

30:09

Speaker A

animals. Uh, for a very long time, nobody helped me at all. They wheeled me in with some alcoholics and drug addicts. Well, the crowd was extremely sketchy. I waited a very long time for help. Then they drew my blood all night

30:23

Speaker A

long and hooked me up to some IVs. Uh, I felt better after they put some glucose into my vein. And it was getting close to morning. I get up from my cot and say, "Well, that's it, thanks, I'm feeling better, I'm going

30:36

Speaker A

home." They tell me, "No, no, no, wait, you need to wait for the doctor." I say , "Alright, I'll wait for the doctor." I wait half an hour, an hour, I get up again and say, "No, I really need to go

30:45

Speaker A

, I have to check out of my hotel." Because I’d gone to the first overpriced hotel I found, I don't remember, maybe 50 bucks a night. Hmm.

30:53

Speaker A

They were like, "No, you're not going anywhere, you can't, your tests are bad , wait some more." I wait some more. I try to leave again, saying, "Look, this isn't a prison, I need to get out of here." And I realize at that moment

31:06

Speaker A

that something is wrong. And all this business about waiting for the doctor and having bad tests—they were stalling for time on purpose. And that's because I had told them I had escaped from Ukraine. I thought I was practically in a European country,

31:21

Speaker A

after all. I thought, they'll help me here. Here I can openly say that I escaped from Ukraine, that I'm a refugee. Nothing to be afraid of. But these doctors started literally threatening me. They stationed a huge orderly by my bed to make sure I didn't

31:37

Speaker A

move anywhere at all. Uh, when I said, "Can't I just leave? This isn't a prison. I'm just going to turn around and walk out right now." They told me, "You're not going anywhere, we're calling the cops right now, and we

31:49

Speaker A

found drugs in your test results that couldn't possibly be there." Uh, as I thought about it later, one theory is that it was the sedative they injected me with the first time I called an ambulance. Maybe they saw that sedative

32:06

Speaker A

in my test results. I don't know, maybe that was just an excuse too. And the main reason was that I am a refugee.

32:14

Speaker A

And maybe, according to some rules, they should have called the police on me, sent me somewhere, and detained me.

32:20

Speaker A

Anyway, in the middle of this verbal altercation, which was quite heated, my phone rings. I had actually tried to leave the hospital once before and had already spotted the back entrance, like a fire exit or emergency exit. But that

32:37

Speaker A

big orderly intercepted me and didn't let me go. Well, he didn't really understand where I was going. So, during this argument with the doctor, who starts threatening to call the police because they found codeine in my blood and wouldn't let me leave. An

32:51

Speaker A

acquaintance calls me just to see how things are, whether I made it across or not. I tell her: "Excuse me, one second , I'll step aside." I start walking, and it turns out we were near the hospital's main entrance. I turn and

33:03

Speaker A

start heading in the opposite direction from the main entrance. I could have walked straight out, but there were a bunch of orderlies there who I think would have grabbed me immediately. I turn the other way, and since they saw

33:15

Speaker A

I wasn't heading for the exit, they let their guard down a bit. In the meantime , I quickly round a corner and start weaving through the hospital. It’s a large hospital, and I make my way toward that back exit I had spotted

33:29

Speaker A

earlier. I bolt out of there quickly and head to a small hotel, paranoid and terrified. I quickly check out of that hotel, thinking they probably know where I called the ambulance from. I hurry to another small hotel, and well,

33:41

Speaker A

the rest is the same as everyone else's . Border guards, paperwork, and so on.

33:45

Speaker A

That’s the story. I think I’ve told it all. Uh, once again, I'll say: prepare yourselves, prepare your routes . At least three starting points, at least a few options for each, and escape routes to the left and right

33:59

Speaker A

from every point. Where are you planning to go? Study the map. Everything is possible, nothing is impossible. To everyone, I don't know if I should say this, but I recommend illegal border crossing; it is possible . In that area, I don't think it's as

34:12

Speaker A

difficult or dangerous as, say, trekking through the Carpathians for weeks. That, of course, is brutal. I was so exhausted from those, how many hours were we hiking? From the evening of one day until, roughly speaking, the evening of the next. It was the

34:27

Speaker A

toughest crossing of my entire life. I can't even imagine how one walks through the mountains for weeks. You are going to be very tired. Prepare yourself physically. It is not going to be easy. If you want to survive and

34:37

Speaker A

step into a new life, you have to sweat a little for it. It's not just a breeze , the way my partner imagined it, thinking he’d take his favorite towel and an extra pair of sneakers to walk around clean once he’s abroad. It

34:54

Speaker A

doesn't work like that. Take the absolute minimum of belongings. As little as you possibly can, just the essentials, just water. Maybe a change of clothes for the other side, or you can even go without. The absolute minimum is water, Snickers—what I

35:09

Speaker A

personally took—and yogurts, because I believe they are absorbed quickly and easily, and you can drink one fast.

35:16

Speaker A

Snickers, yes, and water, wire cutters, or, yes, wire cutters. Basically, that’s all you need to take. Some kind of minimal medical kit, and definitely Band-Aids. What did I take with me? I poured something into a dispenser, I don't remember what it was

35:30

Speaker A

from. A spray bottle. I put hydrogen peroxide in it so I could disinfect any scratches or wounds, because moving through brush, your hands will be all scratched up. Naturally, if you run into thorns, you could get serious wounds, and you need to disinfect them

35:46

Speaker A

right away. You don't want to have to deal with treating an infection on the other side.

35:51

Speaker A

Without any issues. Well, first of all, my partner doesn't hold a grudge against me and understands himself that he wasn't prepared enough, as I mentioned before, with the backpack strapped to his chest that he couldn't drop at the crucial moment. He didn't

36:08

Speaker A

train physically before the start date. We had, well, let's say a month to plan our escape. And during that month, I was active; I live in a private house, so I had the chance to go out into the

36:20

Speaker A

yard and run circles. There were pull-up bars in the yard too. So, I had the opportunity to work out, plus I didn't smoke. But he smoked right before the crossing, didn't train, and didn't eat. On that day before our

36:34

Speaker A

start, while we were staying at our friend's place in Odessa, he decided to have some beers and cigarettes with him , to have a fun evening—to say goodbye to Ukraine, so to speak—which I believe was a huge mistake to drink

36:45

Speaker A

beer before such a strain. He is an adult, so I am a bit younger than him, he is older than me. It was hard for me to tell him what to do, and I didn't feel it was necessary. Maybe I should

36:57

Speaker A

have snatched the beer and cigarettes out of his hands. Probably I should have, I don't know. But at the time, I figured he was an adult and knew what he was doing to his health and his fitness. He knew what he was getting

37:08

Speaker A

into. And now to the crossing moment itself. When you run across that field, like I said, it’s comparable to running waist-deep in water. It is very difficult. I mean, he was exhausted, and I was just as exhausted. As I

37:24

Speaker A

mentioned, after that crossing, I ended up in the hospital, and I had to get IV drips, glucose, or something. Couldn't eat or drink. From the moment we crossed until I ended up in the hospital, I was just vomiting the whole

37:39

Speaker A

time. That tells you just how exhausted I was. And after the line, well, I physically didn't have the capacity to carry him. I mean, while we were still on the other side, I was trying to gesture to him, shouting, "Come on,

37:54

Speaker A

come on, let's run," and so on. But I can't just grab a grown man with a backpack and run with him. I was spent, and there was no chance I could have dragged him out of there. As soon as we

38:09

Speaker A

crossed the line, the border guards appeared immediately. That’s a detail I might have missed in my story. It was an ambush. No car pulled up, no quad bike was there. They appeared right after we crossed the line, literally a

38:26

Speaker A

minute or two later. I think they were sitting in that same ditch at the border. It was very hot that day. It was 4:00 in the afternoon. The sun was scorching. I think they were hiding in the shade of that ditch, sitting in an

38:43

Speaker A

ambush, and they missed our approach until they heard the sounds or saw us on the cameras on the poles, realizing we’d crossed the border. They appeared right behind us, a few hundred meters away. I mean, for me, it was

38:59

Speaker A

about 500 meters, and for my partner, it was about 200 meters. And when I reached the tree line on that side, I just collapsed from exhaustion. In that state, I don't believe there was any chance for me to drag him. So, for

39:15

Speaker A

those who think I abandoned him, just imagine it, try to pull something like that off with someone, try to run while dragging, I don't know, by the hand, a person who can no longer run, or try to hoist them onto yourself. I mean, how

39:27

Speaker A

do you even imagine that? And you're not running in a straight line, you're running through a wheat field. Whose height is, well, about up to your waist . It's very difficult, it's impossible.

39:37

Speaker A

And on top of that, you've already been on the move for almost a day. So you're not exactly in prime condition, so to speak. You don't have enough strength to pull that off. I believe I did the right thing, because otherwise both of

39:49

Speaker A

us would have stayed there. And my partner agrees with me and doesn't hold any grudges against me. We still talk to this day. That's how it is. Got it.

39:58

Speaker A

Well, let me say, this wasn't my first attempt at preparation. I had been planning the escape for, let's say, maybe a year, or maybe even longer. The first time, I planned to go through the Carpathians, again, with a partner. You

40:11

Speaker A

don't want to get into something like that alone, of course. I kept planning with the same person, and he was and still is my best friend. But he just has that kind of character where, at the last moment, he says: "No, I don't

40:23

Speaker A

want to die in the mountains, I'm not going." So I'm like: "Well, alright, let's think of something else." Then I thought about leaving via the sea. I think that if it weren't for the PMR, I would have 100%gone by boat across the

40:35

Speaker A

sea. Because it's possible there, and people have proven that it's possible. You know, you just need to get away from the shore. In a normal crossing, the closer you get to the border, the more dangerous it is, but here it's the

40:47

Speaker A

opposite. If you survive the first hour or two and get away from the shore—I planned to move out there on an electric one, take two motors and a rubber boat with me, get away from the shore using oars or an electric motor,

41:00

Speaker A

then just drop it in the water, switch to a regular gasoline motor, and head toward Romania. People just do it, it's possible. And returning to the preparation, I was preparing periodically the whole time, preparing for some sort of departure, and

41:15

Speaker A

naturally, I was always preparing physically. I'm an athlete by nature anyway. My whole life I've been involved in sports—cycling, running, and martial arts. So I've always done sports, always kept myself in a prepared state, so to speak. We

41:31

Speaker A

prepared for this specific escape for about a month from the moment we got together and decided that yes, that's it, we have to go. This was the limit, it couldn't go on any longer. Uh, about a month passed until the start, so four

41:46

Speaker A

weeks. For those four weeks, well, I wouldn't say I trained specifically, I just kept doing bits of cardio, pull-ups, squats, and jumping rope.

41:58

Speaker A

Because in the early years of the war I was working like everyone else, but then things got really bad—everyone knows how it goes when you can't even go to the store for groceries. I stayed home, and I was lucky to have a private

42:13

Speaker A

house, so I had a yard where I could run around, do some laps in the garden, pull-ups, and get some exercise. So I was always doing some kind of physical activity. Uh, I advise others to do squats. Jump rope. Prepare your legs.

42:29

Speaker A

Prepare your legs. I advise you to take that with you. By the way, I severely sprained my ankle during this escape. I twisted it really badly when I jumped into a pit, and I don't know, it took me months to heal it. Mm, make sure you

42:43

Speaker A

take an elastic wrap or medical tape with you so that if you do sprain your ankle or knee, you can bind it tightly.

42:51

Speaker A

Because your legs are everything. Legs and endurance. If your legs are weak, you won't get very far. You have to realize that border guards are pretty well-trained guys, at least the ones I saw in person. They had assault rifles

43:07

Speaker A

and tactical vests, but no body armor. They are constantly walking and moving long distances with rifles and ammo, carrying a lot of weight. They are quite well-prepared physically. If they drop their rifle, ammo, and gear to chase you, while you’ve been on the

43:30

Speaker A

road for a day, two, or a week, and they just woke up refreshed after a morning coffee, your only hope is your legs, your muscles, and your endurance.

43:42

Speaker A

Train all the time. It doesn't matter if you have a plan or just decided that you might leave sometime in the future, start preparing right now. There is no set time frame in which you can guarantee you'll be ready, like in a

43:54

Speaker A

month or two. You should always be preparing. Oh, probably about three weeks, just under a month. It varies, depending on how you get through. And, let's say, I arrived, uh, it was already, so to speak, the season, the

44:05

Speaker A

beginning of summer. And when I arrived in these Stefan Voda, I saw 30 other people just like me there. There were only Ukrainians in those Stefan Voda, just our guys, runners, meaning at the same time as me, let's say, plus or

44:19

Speaker A

minus at the same time, 30 people left. That is, it depends on how busy these employees are. Some manage in 2 weeks, some in 3 weeks, some in a month. This, of course, is also expensive. Count on having to live somewhere in a hotel

44:34

Speaker A

during this time, uh, and feed yourself somehow. And Chisinau, even though it's a small country, is still a capital and it's not cheap. I consider the best, well, maybe not the best, but one of the best in Europe is Germany, because

44:49

Speaker A

here is one of the best, let's say, starter packages for a refugee. Maybe somewhere in Switzerland it’s better, or in Scandinavian countries. They accept our people here. Strong diasporas have already gathered here.

45:03

Speaker A

Mm, you can easily find Ukrainian chats on Telegram where people can help you with housing and explain how to process documents. Mm, the country itself welcomes you with open arms, so to speak, they give you money, they help

45:17

Speaker A

with housing, they help with language courses, they pay for everything, they give you health insurance. I arrived, went there and immediately fixed my teeth, did all sorts of medical tests.

45:29

Speaker A

That is, everything is at the state's expense, and well, the opportunities, of course, are such that here you can become whoever you want. You just, those who know, they know. There is this job center in Germany where you

45:39

Speaker A

arrive, and the employee asks you: "Who do you want to be? Do you just want us to find you a job right now? Or maybe you want to learn German for a couple of years first and do nothing? Just

45:49

Speaker A

learn German, go to school every day and learn the language. Or maybe you already know German and want to get some German education that is valued in all countries of the world? By the way, education from other countries needs to

46:04

Speaker A

be validated here, and sometimes, uh, you have to retrain, which can take up to six months. And German education is valued in other countries. You can come here, I don't know, maybe pick from what they offer, like train drivers,

46:16

Speaker A

they earn very well. Or you want to be an auto mechanic, some kind of driver, uh, well, those are from the manual labor jobs, or you can go into the IT industry, become some kind of web design developer, and the state will

46:31

Speaker A

pay for it. Well, basically, they suggest going into medicine here; it's very easy. And there's a huge demand for people, even with a low level of language, it's easy to enter the medical field. Um, in general, they literally ask you the question:" Who do

46:46

Speaker A

you want to be yourself? You answer them: "Here is how I did it." I came and said that I want to do this, this, and that. They say: "Everything is great, go ahead, apply for your studies , and bring us the confirmation. That's

46:59

Speaker A

it, we will pay for everything." I actually want to point out one thing. The crossing itself, I was so calm, well, like never before in my life. Uh, it was as calm as could be. It was much scarier to live in Ukraine under the

47:13

Speaker A

bombing, uh, being afraid to go to the stores, fearing the recruitment officers. That was what was scary. But the crossing itself, as soon as I, uh, ended up in the tree line, I felt, well , right at home. I don't know, I felt

47:29

Speaker A

so completely calm, just super. Zero nerves. I was 100%sure that I would make it out. I made it out. Yes, it was stressful, tough, but in hindsight, the whole situation in the hospital caused me much more stress than the crossing

47:45

Speaker A

itself. I recall it with horror, because put yourself in my shoes. Just exhausted. You don't understand what is happening to you. You feel nauseous; I don't know, maybe someone has had that after heavy physical exertion. Uh, anyone who has done professional sports

48:01

Speaker A

knows. When you run some long distance, you might feel nauseous from it, or when you've stood in the ring for 12 rounds, you might start feeling sick afterward. You have that kind of condition, you're nauseous, you're helpless, you go to the hospital

48:17

Speaker A

thinking you're finally safe, that they'll help you, you turn to the doctors, and something totally incomprehensible starts happening to you. Yes, they helped me, but they started asking me so many strange questions. About drugs, about leaving Ukraine. And I didn't understand, I was

48:35

Speaker A

not at all in a state to assess the situation soberly. I didn't understand what they wanted from me. Uh, and in this helpless state, they started threatening me that they would call the police on me, that they found some

48:47

Speaker A

narcotics in my blood and suspected me of something, though they wouldn't tell me what exactly. And you start to imagine what you are being suspected of . Maybe transporting drugs. Well, who knows. I don't know these Moldovan laws

49:00

Speaker A

. I don’t know what you could possibly be pinning on me now. Why would you call the police on me right now? I know there’s no need to call the police on me. I should go to Stefan Voda myself, walk in, and say, "I am

49:10

Speaker A

so-and-so, a refugee." They drew so much blood from me. Which was quite strange. I mean, they gave me IV drips —like in Ukraine, they’d usually give me glucose, as is standard, followed by saline to help with dehydration and exhaustion. But here,

49:29

Speaker A

for some reason, they kept drawing my blood. They drew so much blood from me; that was definitely not normal. And it was scary, to say the least. After that crossing, I literally had to escape from that hospital. Uh, who knows what

49:43

Speaker A

could have been waiting for me there. It was creepy. In such a helpless state , yes. And regarding organs, I’ll tell you this: when I ended up in Moldova, I sat there for a month and subscribed to Moldovan news channels.

49:57

Speaker A

By the way, I highly recommend you subscribe to them too; they sometimes report on border crossings that aren’t mentioned in any Ukrainian DPSU channels, but Moldovan channels might report that some guys crossed the border today somewhere, and you can get

50:12

Speaker A

some information. And these Moldovan news channels very often report on human abductions. That’s a totally normal topic there. Human trafficking is at a very high level there. Anyone who wants to can find it on the internet. Look up the statistics and

50:27

Speaker A

see for yourself. Uh, there are a lot of people stolen because of Transnistria, because of all the confusion with citizenship and the border—it’s like an appendix of Europe that isn't really part of Europe . And, in short, it’s not safe; there

50:44

Speaker A

are a lot of Roma, Soroca, and so on. Anyway, the start was around 9:00 PM on Thursday, and we finished at 4:00 PM the next day. Well, so, a little less than a full day, we weren't rushing. At

50:58

Speaker A

night, we walked quite slowly and, let's say, at an economical pace, because naturally, you can't see far and it's not easy to move in the dark.

51:06

Speaker A

We took constant breaks, constantly, because you are, naturally, incredibly paranoid. You think there are sounds somewhere, someone is following you, or something is moving. We stopped all the time; we’d sit for 5 minutes, 10 minutes. That’s how it went until

51:21

Speaker A

morning. At dawn, we pushed hard without stopping because it was already light out, and we could see where we were going. And as I said, work hadn't started in the fields yet, people weren't moving around in the fields yet

51:31

Speaker A

. And then, somewhere around lunch, we probably rested for an hour or two. I mean, I even fell asleep, because machinery started working in the fields near us. Some tractors were driving around, harvesting wheat, we sat in a

51:44

Speaker A

tree line. The tree line was extremely narrow. It was literally only three trees wide. So we lay down in the grass and stayed there for a couple of hours, caught a couple of hours of shut-eye.

51:53

Speaker A

But otherwise, yes, practically no sleep. In terms of how it felt. First of all, as I already mentioned, and I'll note it again, there was calmness.

52:00

Speaker A

A calmness that you hadn't felt in all these years of the war. When you have this feeling, guys, when you take your life into your own hands, you are finally not hiding, not doing what you're told or what you're forced to do

52:13

Speaker A

, sitting at home or running and ducking through your city in fear. Instead, you feel like you're the master of the situation, you take everything under control, you decide that you are going to walk, and there was a huge sense of calm. Absolutely no

52:27

Speaker A

doubt, not a single bit of nerves. You have to be 100%sure that it will work, and then it will work for you. Then you won't make mistakes or get nervous at some critical moment. You need to feel as confident as possible. Physical

52:42

Speaker A

state. Well, of course, you're experiencing adrenaline, and at first, you don't feel any fatigue. You plow ahead like a tank through thickets, through branches, across fields. But after about 12 hours of walking like that, well, of course, a little fatigue

52:57

Speaker A

started to set in. My legs weren't as fresh as they were at the start. And by the time of the final dash before the border, we weren't exhausted, but we were already in a not-so-fresh state. A sleepless night, the adrenaline had

53:10

Speaker A

worn off a bit, and you don't feel quite as focused. But you have to try to stay as alert as possible during these moments, because you are very tired, you are under huge stress, and you might start making irrational

53:22

Speaker A

decisions, like getting scared or trying to turn back and go the other way, which is another 10 kilometers.

53:29

Speaker A

Which is, basically, going nowhere. No one is waiting for you back there anyway. And to get home, you'd still have to travel across half the country.

53:35

Speaker A

At these moments, people sometimes get spooked, turn around, and then they get caught. You have to be confident until the very end. And as for the dash itself, the dash was, in total, maybe 2 kilometers, or a little more. Well,

53:47

Speaker A

anyone who runs knows that running 2 km at a good pace is, to put it mildly, extremely exhausting and difficult. And when you have a backpack on your back, loose dirt, fields, and branches under your feet, it’s very tough. And for

54:02

Speaker A

me, well, yes, I suffered from complete physical exhaustion. Over, how should I put it, overexerted myself. Afterward, I probably couldn't eat normally for a week. I only survived on some yogurts; I just couldn't eat anything else. And you know, I wanted to go to a

54:16

Speaker A

restaurant after getting out, like a normal person, and order a steak. I tried, but when I saw the fried meat, I realized my body just wouldn't be able to digest it. That was my condition a year ago. And I’m saying now: "I am

54:30

Speaker A

certain that this definitely won't be over in another year." And what was eating me up inside was the fact that you aren't getting any younger.

54:37

Speaker A

Especially with the new law, where young people under 23 can leave. And we’re talking now about those who are 25 and older. How old was I at the start of the war? 22 years old, right?

54:50

Speaker A

I was 22, and now I’m almost 27; four years have passed. Four years...well, the last year wasn't too bad, but those 3 years were just a total waste. No progress, no money earned, no education gained, no languages learned, because

55:07

Speaker A

no matter how much you want to study during a war, with bombings, shelling, and no power or internet, it’s hard to focus and find motivation. And this stagnation, this stolen time, was eating me up from the inside. That was

55:25

Speaker A

my main driving force, because I couldn't afford to lose any more time, realizing you're in your twenties now, and if the war drags on for another year or two, you'll be nearly 30. And when will you actually start living?

55:40

Speaker A

When this is all over, you’ll have to find a job, buy a car, and you realize you won't be fully settled until you're forty. And that is terrifying. It’s truly terrifying. So, don’t wait. You only have one life, and you need to get

55:55

Speaker A

things moving as fast as possible. The sooner you start, the sooner you'll reach success. It’s only going to get worse. You will see that the barbed wire at the border is tightening more and more. Trenches are being dug,

56:05

Speaker A

cameras are being installed, drones are being purchased, and so on. And it won't get any easier.

Topics: war escape Transnistria crossing Ukraine war border crossing tips survival story escape planning refugee journey warzone survival personal story borders and checkpoints

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