KYIV, Ukraine — Early Thursday morning it was a wake-up call he never wanted.
“I understood that it was definitely explosions,” Igor Vershynin said. “It was far away, but it started.”
Vershynin is in Kyiv, Ukraine. He says after realizing what he was hearing was the onset of a Russian invasion, he took cover.
“I just moved to the safest place in my apartment just to be sure that there will not be any danger if something would hit nearby,” he said.
He says he packed emergency supplies, food and money while constantly looking for information to allow him to be up-to-date on developments. He talked with his relatives and is now trying to figure out their next move.
“I’m trying to keep calm and the next step will be that I will go to donate my blood and my money to the Ukrainian army,” he said.
Vershynin says people have been told the Ukrainian army is reliable and strong and will be able to protect their country. Yet, he says he recognizes the Ukrainian military is young having only starting to build in 2014 when he says Russian separatists began to occupy eastern Ukraine.
“I’m a bit nervous about this situation because it’s totally nonsense,” Vershynin said. “You can’t imagine this. This is [the] second time that someone [has tried] to take my home.”
After the Soviet Union was dissolved in the early 1990s, Ukraine was part of the Budapest Memorandum that was signed in 1994 where Ukraine, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States agreed in exchange for Ukraine giving up nuclear weapons, it was assured sovereignty and border security.
Vershynin says with Russia now invading diplomacy is out the door.
“It’s totally making a new world where agreements [don’t] work,” he said.
He worries if Russia takes Ukraine, other countries seeing no consequences might follow suit.