Fleeing Ukraine: One family's story

The world knows the big story of Ukraine and its invasion by the Russian army. But sometimes a little story can illuminate a subject in a way the big story does not.

While the rest of the world is focused on Ukraine, Tetyana Shippee is thinking about her parents. (And also about Ukraine).

Shippee was born in Ukraine but has lived in the United States for decades. She is now an associate professor and gerontologist at the University of Minnesota. Her parents still live in Ivano-Frankivsk, a city in western Ukraine.

Or rather they did live there, until the Russians invaded. Now they're in Poland. The story of their three-day journey to cross a border only three hours from home was recounted in real time in a series of social media posts by their daughter in Minnesota.

Shippee was in more or less constant contact with her parents from the moment the Russians started shooting last Thursday morning — or Wednesday night, our time.

Like many Ukrainians, Shippee's parents had doubted that war with Russia was really coming. "My dad is a professor who teaches Ukrainian history," she told an editorial writer Monday morning. "So, very closely connected to this whole thing about what's happening. And even with that, they did not think this war was going to happen, and felt that they would be very safe in western Ukraine.

"So it was incredibly shocking to us when all of a sudden, the first day when Kyiv started getting bombed, our airport got hit — in Ivano-Frankivsk! And oil fields, next to the airport.

"My parents did not believe this was happening. They were in utter shock. They said, 'We're totally paralyzed.' And just as they were talking to me, we hear loud booms, and it's the smoke and the explosions from the oil fields."

Shippee's dad, Igor, is 65 and has had heart trouble. Her mom, Nadiya, also a professor, is 63. Their two children both live in the United States; Shippee's younger sister is planning a wedding this month in India. Igor and Nadiya went in a matter of days from proud parents preparing to attend their daughter's wedding to a couple of instant refugees.

They packed their bags, not forgetting their clothes for the wedding, made some sandwiches and hit the road.

On Google Maps, the distance from Ivano-Frankivsk to the nearest Polish town is 133 miles, or about the distance from Minneapolis to Cloquet. At the end of that drive, though, waited a three-day traffic jam. In winter. With no toilets, and just a few crackers (the sandwiches were gone the first day). When volunteers arrived with hot soup and tea, Shippee rejoiced from 5,000 miles away.

Finally, late Sunday night, Shippee's parents crossed the border into Poland. They are safe, for now, although they sound determined to return to Ukraine. "They are both patriots, and in fact my dad took active part in uprisings against the Russian regime in the revolutions we've had in the past decade." They are eager to get back — to help their country, and also because Nadiya's mother is 87, and bedridden.

"My grandma started crying. She was saying, 'Now you're going to leave me, and you won't come back, and I won't see you until I die,'" Shippee said. "Who is really being forgotten in this crisis are older people. My heart breaks for them. They can't leave.

"Older people have already lived through so much trauma. My grandma always told me, 'You guys, you're going to have a different future. You'll never have to live through what I lived through.' … Having lived with so much fear during Soviet times, and thinking this will never happen again. And the fact that now, we're being attacked by Russia so that we can be part of the new Russian future? It's the worst nightmare for many older people."

Shippee wants to tell her family's story as widely as possible — and with it, the story of Ukraine's fight to maintain its independence.

"I'm so worried," she said, "that with news fatigue, in another couple of days folks will just move on."