UKRAINE CRISIS - ‘I'M SEARCHING FOR BOMB SHELTERS'

AN AUSSIE MUM STUCK IN THE UKRAINE SHARES HER FEARS AS RUSSIAN FORCES GATHER ON THE BORDER

- Michael Crooks

COPE WITH FEAR

According to Australian mother Nataliya (above, with son Michael), “there is no panic”, but she remains incredulous that she’s stuck in the Ukraine. “I didn’t know what to do when I found out I couldn’t leave,” she says.

Sitting in her parents’ apartment, in the Ukrainian city of Poltava on February 15, Australian Nataliya Poshyvaylo-Towler did something she had never done before. The mum-of-two, who is in Ukraine with her 8-year-old son Michael visiting her parents, had grown up in Poltava and knew there were Soviet-era bomb shelters scattered around the city. Opening her phone, she began searching for the havens.

“I looked on a Google map how far away they are, how to get there, how many people they take,” she tells WHO. “I just have to be prepared in case something happens.”