‘Illusion of safety’ shattered for Ukrainian woman living in Kelowna, B.C.

A Kelowna, B.C., woman is watching in horror as those she loves most fight to stay safe in war-torn Ukraine.

Maria Tokareva, 30, moved to Canada from Ukraine to study five years ago and has been in Kelowna for the last three.

She’s in touch with the family she loves back in her home country daily  and their struggles have become hers and horrors they’re facing have cut through her sense of security, half a world away.

“I think I had this illusion of safety. That’s what I call it … when you go to bed, and you assume that you’re going to wake up safely, you’re going have a good night’s sleep and, you know, nothing will be bombed overnight, you won’t be killed overnight,” Toareva said.

“I just don’t have this anymore because we never expected this (to happen) in our country, to our country. I think if they could do this, they can start with any other country. Now, nobody’s safe in this world.”

Since war broke out a month ago, Tokareva has developed a bit of a ritual to bring order to her view of the chaos happening overseas. She checks the news, finds out where the bombings are happening and then she sees if her family went online, after the explosions went off.

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“You can just be calling people all the time. If they need to be in a hideout they should be in a hideout not being distracted by me (being) worried,” she said. “If my family was online after the bombing, I don’t even touch them because it’s going on every day.”

Hiding out has become a very real part of life for her family.

Her mother shared images Monday of a bomb shelter she created in her home, though Tokareva indicated if the worst were to happen, it wouldn’t offer much safety.

“If a missile flies in her yard or in her house, she will be 100 per cent dead,” she said.

“The hideout may (help) from some pieces of missiles but not much. … I just tell her to use her best judgment because she’s there and she cannot leave her animals. I understand that, as well.”

Her mother has an animal shelter and refuses to leave the creatures she cares for alone.

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Tokareva said she doesn’t want to tell anyone what to do. She knows she’s far from the front lines and her support is what’s required as people she loves navigate the most unreal scenarios.

One of those people is a friend who is in southern Ukraine, an area hard-hit by Russian forces.

He was in Peru, working as a software developer before the war broke out and he was called home to see his grandma, who was undergoing cancer treatment.

Her cancer is curable and being treated but she can’t move, and because he’s not been called to the front lines, due to being an insulin-dependent diabetic, he’s stayed by her side as Russian bombs rained down “randomly, every single day.”

“Other people from his city that I know, they evacuated long ago, and he couldn’t go because of his grandma,” she said. “So he says all his family is gone. It’s just him, his mom and his grandma who stays.”

Once his grandmother has made it to safety he intends to go to the Territorial Defence Union anyway.
It’s these people she loves and so many more who can use the help that Kelowna residents have been offering, through a variety of means.

“I think that the help that comes from Kelowna is really good and really needed,” she said.

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The body armour, tourniquets and bandages are items that are sorely needed and in short supply back in her home country.

More so, though, she wants people to keep the country she loves in mind as time and the war wears on.

“When you see some war on the news and you think, ‘Oh, it’s somewhere and probably people have their internal issues and they need to work out it … it shouldn’t really bother me,’” she said.

“Well, I had the same feelings and now I don’t, because really, Ukrainians did nothing to Russia and Russia just wanted to take our land, take our people… They just wanted it and they went for it and they wouldn’t stop. They’ll go for the next country and next country and the next country. It’s a global problem.”

She said nobody is safe from Russia.

The United Nations chief Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said Monday he used his “good offices” to ask Martin Griffiths, the head of the UN’s worldwide humanitarian operations, to explore the possibility of a ceasefire with Russia and Ukraine.

He told reporters he is appealing for “an immediate humanitarian ceasefire to allow for progress in serious political negotiations, aimed at reaching a peace agreement.”

Guterres said that since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, there has been a “senseless loss of thousands of lives,” displacement of 10 million people, systematic destruction homes, schools and hospitals and other essential infrastructure, “and skyrocketing food and energy prices worldwide.”

— with files from Associated Press