The news of Russia's invasion of Ukraine on Thursday February 24th caused anguish among the Ukrainian community in Toulouse in south-west France. “I've been shaking since I got up. I didn't even take the time to grab a shower, I immediately started thinking about organising the community,” said Irina at midday, a few hours after the invasion had begun. This 38-year-old woman, who has lived here for eight years with her husband and two children, and who works in accounts at a local company, said there were around “one hundred Ukrainian families” who were active in the community's local network.
Like her, many of the network members are “women in mixed marriages whose husbands work in aeronautics” she said, referring to the local aviation sector – Airbus has its headquarters on the outskirts of the city. And since 1975 Toulouse has been twinned with the Ukrainian capital Kyiv.
On the day of the invasion the city's mayor, Jean-Luc Moudenc from the right-wing Les Républicains, and the city council's opposition groups issued messages highlighting this twinning link with Ukraine and condemning the invasion. An informal collective group has meanwhile organised a demonstration of solidarity in the city on Sunday February 27th. “We will call for peace and the end of the Russian military invasion,” said Irina, who is part of the group.
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In the meantime she is keeping up to date with the latest situation on the ground in the Ukraine where her parents, who live in a small fourth-floor apartment in the centre of Kyiv, are busy making arrangements. “My mother called me this morning, they've got a little suitcase ready so they can take refuge in the basement of the building opposite if they have to, and they're making sure their phones work ok. They are now planning for the unexpected and unusual things that might happen.” Irina said one of her female cousins had opted to leave the Ukrainian capital and head for Ternopil in the west of the country. “My parents won't leave. It's hard but I understand them, it's their country, their city. What would I do? When someone invades your house you're not going to leave them to it...”
The 2013-2014 crisis on everyone's minds
Oksana Budka has lived in France since 1993, runs Bereguinia, the only Ukrainian cultural association in this region of France, and lives with her mother at their home at Carmaux, north-east of Toulouse. Each year the two women come to Toulouse to gather with other members of the community in front of a statue of the nineteenth century Ukrainian poet and writer Taras Shevchenko – seen as the father of modern Ukrainian literature - which has stood in the Bellefontaine neighbourhood since 1971. She views it as a way to highlight the culture of a country where her brother, nephews and nieces still still. “It's a shock but my brother doesn't want to show any signs of fear or panic,” she said of the current situation there. “My niece is in Kyiv with her two little girls and she hesitated about leaving as there are traffic jams on the roads and she wants to avoid finding herself trapped in the middle of the fields. We're all staying in contact, these are very tough days....”
Oksana had been expecting these “tough days” since last Monday and Vladimir Putin's official recognition of Donetsk and Louhansk, the two breakaway regions in the east of Ukraine. “What I fear now is that Ukraine becomes part of Russia … I hope that our people and our soldiers can manage to resist, but it will be hard,” she said. “You can't love the Russians but you have to acknowledge that these are good tactics. They've prepared for this for a long time and I think that sanctions won't now be enough. The time for that was 2014, today it's too late.”
Indeed, the Ukrainian crisis of 2013-2014 is on everyone's minds. “Since the Maidan protests [editor's note, popular demonstrations in late 2013 and 2014], the Crimea [editor's note , annexed by Russia in 2014] and the Donbass [editor's note, the name given to the area where the breakaway regions are located] the situation in the region has got worse. Each time they say; there, that's drawn the line. But Vladimir Putin has just crossed another line by bombarding Kyiv,” said Elena, a tour guide based in Toulouse for 20 years. A dual Ukrainian-Russian citizen, she knows many Ukrainians and considers what is now happening to be a “crime”.
She said that on her social networks many Russian contacts have “put up the Ukrainian flag or the little white dove of peace”. Elena continued: “Some of them speak of their shame at leaving Putin in position since 2000 without having been able to stop that ...” Speaking just ten or so hours after the invasion started she said that things had already gone “way too far”.
“As we speak, the whole of Ukraine is being bombed, it's no longer about saving two small regions to the east but involves the whole country,” said Elena. “I understand the anguish and fear of the countries bordering Ukraine, such as Moldova, who were part of the Soviet Union. The problem is that everything depends on the wishes of a single man who acts with no counterchecks, surrounded by a small circle who are answerable to no one. Historians and perhaps psychiatrists will assess later what was going through Putin's mind … I don't know myself. But now anything can happen.”
For Irina the fear is that Ukraine becomes another Chechnya, the republic in the North Caucasus which is part of Russia but which has seen two separatist wars since the end of the Soviet Union in 1991. “What I'm very afraid of is that Putin invades the country, that he instils panic and terror there, and that the resistance is crushed as soon as it emerges. I'm afraid that tomorrow Ukraine will become like Chechnya. And there's nothing now to stop that happening ...”
The last thing I want is for French people to go and die for Ukraine.
For these three women, the fact that Moscow is a nuclear power enormously complicates any European and Western military engagement against the Russian invasion. Nonetheless, they want to see a firm response. “The West can no longer stand aside or remain aloof from what's going on,” said Elena. “I don't have the military expertise to say how they should do it but Ukraine must be supported, we don't want to wake up in the Germany of 1939! The urgent thing is to stop the bombs, diplomacy will come afterwards.”
Mila, 38, who has been in Toulouse for around ten years and who has dual French and Ukrainian nationality, spoke to a cousin on the phone in Ukraine on Thursday. He told her that they were buying weapons and had been getting ready in the cellars for several days. “Others want to leave, there are all views,” she said. “The last thing I want is for French people to go and die for Ukraine. But unfortunately, even if I would never have thought I'd be able to say this, Ukraine needs military help. And there must be strong financial sanctions against Russia. Any weak reaction against Putin puts France and Europe in danger. Poland and Romania are just next door. If he can invade Ukraine he can go further,” she added. She then insisted: “We are very emotionally affected but we remain proud and we're going to keep a calm head. However, we must be clear: this is not just one more crisis. It's a war in the heart of Europe.”
It is a war that stirs up memories of an earlier world for Oksana, who grew up in the USSR. “I remember a little Russian song which went 'Do the Russians want war? Ask the soldiers who are buried.' It was a way of saying that we didn't want more deaths from war. Now it is there, between two sibling peoples.”
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- The original French version of this article can be found here.
English version by Michael Streeter