A former Miss Ukraine has described how she fled Kyiv with her seven-year-old son after waking up to the sound of air raid sirens and explosions on the first day of Russia’s invasion.
Veronika Didusenko, dressed in the blue and yellow colours of the Ukrainian flag, also called on other countries to enforce a no-fly zone over Ukraine to stop Russia’s “terrorism”.
Ms Didusenko and her son joined thousands of others by evacuating the Ukrainian capital after Russia invaded the country on 24 February.
The former beauty queen said she had a slow drive to Ukraine’s western border with thousands of cars causing massive traffic jams as the country came under attack.
“Directly above my head, dozens of helicopters with their troops were bombing … as I was fleeing with my young son, I could see there was a real air battle above our head,” she said at a news conference in Los Angeles on Tuesday.
“On my… journey to the border of Ukraine, there was no place where sirens would not sound, where rockets and bombs would not explode.”
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“It was horrible, so many children and mothers just trying to get to the border. What is more violent at the moment, the Russian militaries sometimes stopped and shot innocent people trying to escape,” she continued.
Ms Didusenko and her son eventually made it to Moldova and travelled through other European countries before reaching Geneva, Switzerland.
She said she made the “heartbreaking” decision to leave her son there to travel to the US to hold the news conference with women’s rights attorney Gloria Allred.
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Her mother and grandparents are reportedly still in Kyiv.
Ms Didusenko said she fears Mr Putin won’t stop until he achieves the “eradication of everything Ukrainian and Ukraine itself”.
She added that calls from Ukrainians calling for more help are “falling on deaf ears in Washington and Europe”.
She also referenced repeated calls from Ukrainian officials to institute a no-fly zone over Ukraine.
“Close the skies over Ukraine,” she demanded, “people are dying in shelters with no food, no water, no light, no warmth. It is a tragedy. It is terrorism.”
Ms Didusenko said Ukrainians are committed to defending their country, but need more help from other nations.
She said: “Ukrainians absolutely have the courage to defend their land and homes, but in order to stop the endless attack from the east and north, they are in desperate need of weapons and ammunition. We will fight for our freedom and yours.”
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Ms Didusenko said she and Ms Allred decided the story of what is happening in Ukraine was important to share on International Women’s Day on Tuesday 8 March.
“Right now, millions of Ukrainian children and their mothers are trembling at every sound in the subway stations and bomb shelters. Even more heartbreaking that women are giving birth in such conditions in these shelters,” she said.
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Ms Didusenko won the Miss Ukraine beauty pageant in 2018, but lost her title after it emerged she had a five-year-old son.
It comes after Anastasia Lenna, a former Miss Ukraine who represented her country in the 2015 Miss Grand International beauty contest, picked up an assault rifle and signed up to defend her home from Russian forces.
She wrote on Instagram: “Everyone who crosses the Ukrainian border with the intent to invade will be killed!”
