Days after being split up during their journey to safety, a 98-year-old woman in Ukraine who managed to escape Russian-occupied territory by walking nearly 10 kilometers (6 miles) on her own while using a cane and slippers has been reunited with her family.
After Russian troops reached the eastern Donetsk region’s frontline town of Ocheretyne last week and combat intensified, Lidia Stepanivna Lomikovska and her family made the decision to evacuate.
Russian forces have been moving forward in the area, hitting Kyiv’s exhausted and ammo-starved men with bombs, drones, and artillery.
Amidst the confusion of the departure, Lomikovska lost contact with her son and two daughters-in-law, one of whom, Olha Lomikovska, had suffered shrapnel injuries just days before. Lydia preferred to stay on the main road while the younger family members chose to travel on side roads.
She walked all day without food or water to reach Ukrainian lines, steadying herself with a splintered piece of wood in one hand and a cane in the other.
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The elderly woman described her journey, saying she had fallen twice, had to stop occasionally to rest, and had even fallen asleep before waking up and carrying on.
“Once I lost balance and fell into weeds. I fell asleep … a little, and continued walking. And then, for the second time, again, I fell. But then I got up and thought to myself: “I need to keep walking, bit by bit,'” Lomikovska stated.
Lomikovska was rescued after Ukrainian soldiers saw her strolling down the road in the evening, according to Pavlo Diachenko, the acting spokesman for the National Police of Ukraine in the Donetsk region.
They turned her over to the “White Angels,” a police unit that evacuates residents of areas under attack. After that, they transported her to an evacuee center and got in touch with her family.
“I survived that war,” She referred to World War II and remarked. “I had to go through this war too, and in the end, I am left with nothing.”
The CEO of one of the biggest banks in Ukraine said on his Telegram channel on Tuesday that the bank would buy the retiree a house, adding the latest twist to the tale.
“Monobank will buy Lydia Stepanivna a house and she will surely live in it until the moment when this abomination disappears from our land,” Oleh Horokhovskyi stated.
