An 18-hour trip with movie scenes: how was the evacuation of the LA NACION journalist Elisabetta Piqué from Ukraine

BOTOSANI (Romania).- I slept four hours. Finally, in a safe place. In this town in Romania where I arrived today at five in the morning after an incredible 18-hour drive from Kiev, in which I lived through movie scenes, in which I felt like I was in the middle of World War II.

I slept without the nightmare https://ultra-fast-ketoboost.clubeo.com/news/2022/03/03/ultra-fast-keto-boost-legit-weight-loss-results-through-natural of the lugubrious wail of the siren that warned of yet another Russian air attack, without the subsequent explosion that made everything vibrate in https://ultra-fast-keto-boost-9.jimdosite.com/ Kiev, a city from which I left yesterday morning with mixed feelings. It was a rational decision that we made together with my bosses at the newspaper. A https://ultrafastketo-boost.footeo.com/news/2022/03/03/ultra-fast-keto-boost-effective-ketosis-weight-loss-product long- suffering decision , which collided with what my heart told me, which was to stay. Continue to see what was happening on the ground, continue telling https://ultrafastketo-boost.blogspot.com/2022/03/ultra-fast-keto-boost-advanced-ketosis.html the world the shame of a war in the XXI century that shows that humanity has learned absolutely nothing. A war that, beyond the diplomatic efforts https://bumppy.com/tm/read-blog/25795_ultra-fast-keto-boost-promote-better-weight-loss-through-ketosis.html of the West -the "good" ones-, against Vladimir Putin -the "bad", the outcast, the crazy one-, is getting more complicated with the passing of the hours, https://www.brachsmma.com/forum/general-discussions/ultra-fast-keto-boost-ultrafastketoboost-simple-weight-loss-guide leading the parties to adangerous point of no return . Because, finally, the great contribution of those who support the good guy in this movie, https://wakelet.com/wake/mGvFLG0xJWyhBrVxcsecx the Ukrainian president, Volodimir Zelensky , is not an intervention on the ground, but, to avoid blame, sending him more weapons, newer, https://groups.google.com/g/ultrafastketoboost/c/PhWtjTorR3A more sophisticated. And support from abroad a growing foreign legion - more than 16,000 people applied, including Argentines https://sites.google.com/view/ultra-fast-ketoboost/home (obviously it is man's innate instinct to fight... ) -, which is already joining the Ukrainian forces, the armed civilians to the special forces. https://the-dots.com/projects/ultra-fast-keto-boost-results-driven-ketogenic-weight-loss-formula-646660 They all want to defend their country, which has become a symbol of a new and dangerous Cold War,of a brutal invasion, which is causing thousands of deaths, more than a million refugees and gigantic, frightening destruction.

We made the decision to https://lexcliq.com/ultra-fast-keto-boost-energy-enhancing-and-cleansing-weight-loss-line/ leave Kiev as the situation deteriorated, with the passing of the hours, becoming more and more chaotic and unpredictable. And as the minimum security https://ultra-fast-keto-boost-sale.clubeo.com/news/2022/03/04/ultra-fast-keto-boost-sale-effective-ketogenic-supplement conditions to work were no longer given, which made dozens of other war correspondents decide to evacuate days ago. As it becomes clear that, beyond the https://ultra-fast-keto-boost-sale-1.jimdosite.com/ ongoing negotiations between the two parties, there is no turning back. That the cards are laid and that, sooner or later , Vladimir Putin, cornered, isolated from the world https://ultrafastketoboostsale.footeo.com/news/2022/03/04/ultra-fast-keto-boost-sale-increased-ketosis-for-weight-loss-re and increasingly enraged by Ukraine's resistance to his diktat that it return to being a vassal country of "Great Mother Russia", will play all or nothing.

“The windows did not https://ultrafastketoboostsale.blogspot.com/2022/03/ultra-fast-keto-boost-sale-weight-loss.html explode. But obviously it fell very close”, said Giovanni, very calm, an Italian war correspondent with whom ten years ago “we took https://bumppy.com/tm/read-blog/25845_ultra-fast-keto-boost-sale-increased-energy-levels-boost-weight-loss-results.html Tripoli”, that is to say, we covered the fall of Muammar Gaddafi in Libya. One of the bloodiest and most dangerous coverage of https://www.brachsmma.com/forum/general-discussions/ultra-fast-keto-boost-sale-advanced-weight-loss-aid-ignites-ketosis my career , but totally different from this senseless invasion of Vladimir Putin, the first major war in Europe for more than 80 years.

The decision

With Giovanni we https://wakelet.com/wake/UxXxYu9LLCdgDBZVvyWWJ were having the last breakfast in Kiev, on the second floor of the Kozatskiy hotel, which stands in front of the emblematic https://groups.google.com/g/ultra-fast-keto-boost-sale/c/hqPSspCsHpc Maidan square. A place that had become totally insecure, being only 500 meters from the headquarters of the Ukrainian KGB and https://sites.google.com/view/ultrafastketoboostsale/home another 500 from the ministries, the Presidential Palace and other government offices, "targets" of the relentless Russian offensive.

“Yes, you do well. You https://the-dots.com/projects/ultra-fast-keto-boost-sale-boosts-ketosis-for-increased-weight-loss-647374 should go, Elisabetta ”, Giovanni told me when I told him that an exit window had opened for me at dawn, accompanied by a Swiss NGO (who prefers https://lexcliq.com/ultra-fast-keto-boost-sale-thermogenic-weight-loss-drink-cuts-cravings/ that his name not be known) who was taking place in his two vans. When they noticed the possibility of this "exit-strategy" in the newspaper, they had https://ultrafastketoboost-cost.clubeo.com/news/2022/03/04/ultra-fast-keto-boost-cost-proven-thermogenic-weight-loss-aid no doubts: they had to take that opportunity and evacuate as soon as possible. Russian missiles had already tried to attack the Kiev TV tower, a thermal https://ketonow.clubeo.com/news/2022/03/04/keto-now-keto-capsule-extract-weight-loss-aid power plant, and it was clear that they were going for heavier and heavier. How to continue with the coverage if the Russian forces cut electricity, communications, water https://keto-now-1.jimdosite.com/ and I am stuck in a Sarajevo-style place, without food, without satellite phone, without generator?A decision had to be made, fast. And you had to get out.

I finished packing my https://nowketo.footeo.com/news/2022/03/04/keto-now-100-plant-based-weight-loss-aid-curbs-appetite things -although in truth I had never unpacked my suitcase, because these days I was always ready to run-, I passed Giovanni and other colleagues with https://nowketo.blogspot.com/2022/03/keto-now-enhance-brain-sleep-weight-loss.html whom I was moving the groceries they had in my room -cans of tuna breadsticks, Parmesan cheese, ham, salami, apples- and I called Edward, the https://bumppy.com/tm/read-blog/26009_keto-now-keto-capsule-improves-gut-amp-weight-loss.html English-speaking taxi driver I made friends with in a supermarket from Kiev, asking him to pick me up at the hotel at 10:15. The NGO that was going to https://www.brachsmma.com/forum/general-discussions/keto-now-forskolin-boosts-weight-loss-joint-health evacuate me, in fact, at dawn, sent me via WhatsApp the address where I had to be at 10:30, if I wanted to go with them, in a convoy of two Volvo trucks.

"I don't know what's going https://wakelet.com/wake/hJRbLUlv5lc1xGz7StlHr to happen to this fucking crazy Putin," Edward told me, whose wife and daughter are already in Germany. Since he is 50 years old and, due to martial https://groups.google.com/g/keto-now/c/T6VQ7MJ50fs law, men between the ages of 18 and 60 must stay and fight, Edward stayed. “Are you armed? Are you going to fight?” I asked him. "Of https://sites.google.com/view/nowketousa/home course, I have a Kalashnikov in my house and when these sons of bitches arrive I will start shooting too ," he replied. When he left me https://the-dots.com/projects/keto-now-keto-diet-weight-loss-supplements-647947 at the indicated address, with Edward, blue eyes, one of the best people I met in Kiev, we hugged. "Take care, we keep in touch."

The exit, between barricades and Kalashnikovs

The last images of Kiev that I take with me are those of an empty capital, totally militarized, full of check-points, https://lexcliq.com/keto-now-optimal-weight-loss-results-from-ketosis/ barricades where soldiers, civilians with yellow tape on their arms, special forces, controlled everyone. “Passport, accreditation, please”.

A snowy Kiev not scared, but proud, ready to assault. You can see armor already stationed, cranes that continue to place huge cement blocks, columns, sandbags, mountains of earth, whatever is at hand, to stop the enemy.

In fact, what is most impressive about the journey that, from Kiev, I am taking west, towards the border with Romania, via Moldova - a crossing that is less clogged with desperate people than the one in Poland and that will take me 18 hours - is together that. As in every small town in deep rural Ukraine, in the midst of beautiful landscapes of snowy fields, forests, frozen lakes and lagoons, painted houses and very poor dachas, we find people ready to fight . With dozens and dozens of check-points and barricades everywhere, always. In each one there are men armed to the teeth, the yellow and light blue Ukrainian flag waving and a warlike attitude. Everyone is ready to fight the enemy.As they are all farmers, the barricades are also made with squares of straw, one on top of the other, mountains of earth and tree trunks cut with axes. Many are civilians, peasants who live in that granary of Europe that has always been Ukraine, where you see many silos. They all carry Kalashnikovs, shotguns and hunting rifles around their necks. They also control everyone, delaying the car columns of hundreds of thousands of refugees who, too, are escaping towards the border.

"It's that in the first days of the invasion many Russians infiltrated and that is why there is so much control now," explains Pierre, a 25-year-old Frenchman from the NGO, who is behind the wheel of one of two vans. Barricades are seen at the entrance of each town - in one there is even a mannequin or scarecrow with a fake rifle dressed in uniform - and the misery of this internal part of this former Soviet republic is also palpable, where many people are seen escaping in their old cars Soviet-made Lada. "The contrast between Kiev, a huge, modern, western capital city -who knows until when-, is very strong with the interior, which is still very backward, very poor", comments Pierre.

biblical exodus

The biblical exodus of thousands of people to the west continues - the unluckiest, in sub-zero temperatures, are on foot or waiting for someone to put them on a bus, or hitchhiking - and at gas stations you see kilometric queues of people trying to load gasoline, an increasingly scarce commodity. Luckily, my convoy is more than prepared: we have drums with gasoline that, halfway, near the town of Tetib, we put in the tanks through a plastic bottle with a special spout. Something that reminds me of my coverage of the last war in Iraq (in 2002, after the invasion of the United States and other allies and the fall of Saddam Hussein, guilty of hiding weapons of mass destruction never found...), when we entered from Kuwait to one of the countries with the most oil in the world with vans loaded with drums of gasoline, at that time impossible to find.

Just as the militarized Kiev of recent days was a ghost, the towns we pass through also look impressively empty . Especially when it's already night. There are no lights, there is no lighting. Is everyone gone or is everyone hidden underground, in their country houses? "The truth is that even in these areas there were attacks... Nowhere in Ukraine is safe anymore ," says another member of the entourage, alluding to the attacks on civilian targets unleashed by Russian forces in this war that everyone thought was going to happen. to be lightning and that today is 9 days old.

In some towns, each with a church with an onion-style bell tower, you can still see a soul in pain trying to get money from an ATM. There is no cash because the banks have closed. What will all these people do without money who, like us, are escaping to another place, who have left their homes, their relatives -the elderly are reluctant to go-, their daily lives?

panic and tension

It's not easy going west. Beyond the congestion due to the number of people fleeing there, the green military trucks coming and going and the checkpoints , there are many roads and paths in the middle of the countryside and it is very easy to get lost. The internet signal comes and goes in the middle of nowhere, so the maps go crazy too. I try to help the driver by being a navigator, with little success. In a moment of total disorientation in the middle of the countryside, one of the many resistance men, armed to the teeth, kindly invites us to follow him to show us the right path. Ukrainian kindness.

There is also a moment of panic as one of the drivers tries to get past the column of getaway cars heading west. And, very nervous and aggressive, at a checkpoint suddenly some uniformed men with balaclavas point their weapons at us. “Stop, stop, journalist, journalist!” (“Stop! Journalist!”). The nervousness that reigns is such that the shots can come out at any time. My two brothers and my husband, concerned, try to follow my journey through WhatsApp. When there's a signal I'll send you my position.

Another moment of tension is when, suddenly, three military helicopters, two green and one white, fly overhead, making us fear the worst. "They fly very low so as not to be detected by radar and to avoid anti-area batteries," explains Pierre. The devices look quite modern. Will they be part of that military aid that several NATO countries are giving to Ukraine to fight who they consider here to be the new Hitler, Vladimir Putin?

It's already night, there's a snowstorm. The slogan to those who evacuated was to avoid highways. And the road is winding, bumpy, with poor visibility, slippery. "It's almost scarier to end up dying in an accident than under the bombs," I think. And, in the midst of the exodus, the snowfall, the cold, the night, the sensation is that of being in a black and white film of the Second World War. Did we learn nothing? Is it possible that all this I am seeing is true?

When we advanced at a man's pace and were stopped for about four hours a few kilometers from the border with Moldova. Families with children are seen getting out of the car to walk a little, get some air, go to the trees on the side to relieve themselves, hidden from the headlights of the columned cars.

My idea is to get off the convoy in the Ukrainian border town of Mogilev-Posolski, on the border with Moldova, to follow the coverage from there. I don't want to leave Ukraine. I can cover from there the other face of the catastrophe. But it is impossible: all the hotels are full. It is logical, it is a biblical exodus, there are already more than a million Ukrainian refugees and surely this dramatic figure will double in a few days. It impresses the people who leave. Will they one day return to his country today on everyone's lips, if Putin continues with his merciless logic of death, madness and total destruction?

It's already past midnight when we arrive in Moldova. “Moldova! That only exists in Tintin”, comments one of my friends from “TeamUCA”, the WhatsApp chat of my dear friends from the Faculty of Political Science. It is not the only chat that wants to know how I am and where I am. There are my bosses and colleagues from the newspaper, other friends, relatives, co-workers. They all want to know when I'm getting out of the war zone and they make no secret of their relief that I'm getting out of that hell.

The thermometer marks one degree in Valcinet, a Moldovan town close to the border. White tents are seen with volunteers ready to receive refugees with water, hot tea, blankets, sleeping bags. It's past midnight but there's movement. We stopped to fill up gas at a service station. A coffee is urgently needed. We have no Moldovan money, but Nikola arrives, a young man of about 25 who says that he invites us, that we are welcome. He says that, together with his mother, he has been helping day and night as a volunteer for five days the thousands of desperate people who are arriving from Ukraine, who are not only Ukrainians but also Uzbeks, Chinese, Japanese, of various nationalities. "The inhabitants of Moldova, Ukraine, Russia, we are all brothers... This war is because of the madmen who are in power," he says.

Also here it is impossible to stay, there is no place in any hotel. The best thing is to continue towards Romania, where we arrived shortly before three in the morning. Also at that border there are volunteers waiting for refugees with boxes of food, drinks, blankets, hot tea. It will take two more hours of travel to get to Botasani, a town that looks like a town in the Argentine interior, with small streets of colonial architecture mixed with Soviet brutalist-style buildings, where we did find a hotel. We have to recover our strength and, at noon, we will continue our trip to Bucharest, another seven hours by car; a country that is a member of the European Union, where bombs do not fall.

It's five in the morning when I get ready to go to sleep. I find it weird that I can do it in my pajamas. The last seven nights I slept dressed, ready to run with my backpack, computer, passport and other essentials.

Silence reigns and it seems strange to me to think that it will not be broken by the noise of the anti-aircraft siren and the consequent bombardment.