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\u201cWe were not planning to go so far away, but it was better than staying in Romania,\u201d Ms Haidamashchuk explained.<\/p>\n
An English teacher, she and her husband Vitalii are now staying with Ms Dyer and her family in Teesdale, watching from afar as the war devastates their homeland.<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery day we try to watch information from Ukraine on TV, it\u2019s very difficult not only for us, but the people who are in Ukraine \u2026 it\u2019s very strange for us, so unhuman.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s unreal, watching multi story buildings destroyed \u2026 we have friends who are Russian, why are we fighting with them?\u201d Ms Dyer added.<\/p>\n
Olena Dyer emigrated from Ukraine to Geelong 22 years ago and considers Australia home, now she\u2019s considering making it her parents\u2019 home.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are looking to apply for residence, just in case,\u201d she said, fearing the war may drag on for years.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe wouldn\u2019t be able to right now\u201d her mother Larissa said of being able to return home, with no flights into Ukraine and her husband Vitalii already having struggled to make the journey out.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe hope that more people try to understand us, to understand the situation that is going on there.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThey are similar to the people who are living here,\u201d Ms Haidamashchuk said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
WITHIN weeks of Russia invading Ukraine in late February, former Geelong resident Olena Dyer had organised for her parents to flee their home city of Khmelnytskyi, 320 kilometres south-west of Kyiv, to Romania. It took Vitalii and Larissa Haidamashchuk, along with their daughter-in-law and granddaughter, 24 hours to make the trip by car to the […]<\/p>\n