A year after her face covered in blood and bandages became the symbol of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Olena Kourilo looks back on the events of February 24 that shattered her world, and dreams of rebuilding a home in her native country.
“An explosion woke me up at 5:00 a.m. (…) and I understood that it was the beginning of the end”, recalls this 53-year-old former teacher, sitting in a room of an apartment hotel. from Katowice, in the south of Poland where she found refuge, like millions of Ukrainians.
If the first missile hit the airstrip of a military base 500 meters from his house in Chuhouïv, near Kharkiv (east), the second completely destroyed his apartment.
“I was sitting on the sofa when I heard a thud and saw a window crashing against the wall. Then everything bounced on me,” she told AFP, admitting that since then she often saw this moment scrolling in slow motion in his head.
“Then, as I was covered in broken glass, there were ten seconds of total silence, then I heard the cries of the injured.”
“If I had sat somewhere else, I might not have survived,” she sighs.
“For a split second, the thought that I wasn’t ready to die, not now, crossed my mind.”
Once out in the courtyard, she was treated by medics rushing to the scene, who removed a large piece of glass from her head.
She will remember “for the rest of her life” this body of a boy lying in the yard, and his father in tears.
Then she saw three photographers arrive, including Aris Messinis from AFP.
“While I was being photographed, I didn’t care, I didn’t think of anything, I was thanking God for staying alive,” Olena recalls.
The next day, his daughter tells him that his portrait is “in all the newspapers in the world”.
“I couldn’t believe it, I looked at these photos without enthusiasm (…) but it turns out that it was my photo that was the first to become a kind of symbol of this war in Ukraine”.
Quickly, Russian propaganda targeted her, claiming, with false photos in support, that she did not exist, that she was a soldier or an actress, that it was not a question of a missile but from a gas explosion, that the blood on his face was pomegranate juice.
She then decides to post a video of her on Instagram, which will be viewed by more than two million people.
Elena arrived in Poland on March 18 for medical treatment.
“I had a small piece of dirty glass in my eye and I’m missing a piece of retina which is all crumpled by the way. I had four surgeries, three in Poland and one in London,” she says , brushing a long scar near her temple, carefully made up.
After the attack, she experienced a second shock. Her partner left her while she was still in hospital, refusing to take “responsibility”.
“War brings down the masks,” she notes.
After her face traveled the world, she received countless messages of sympathy.
An American artist painted a painting from her photos, which sold at auction for $100,000.
“She called me to say she wanted to give me this money.” But Olena, her nails painted in Ukrainian blue and yellow colors, preferred that this sum be used to purchase equipment for her country’s army because she “really wanted the war to end as soon as possible”.
“Since then, I have participated in different projects, and all the money raised has been used to help Ukraine, however insignificant the sum may be.”
Her long-term goal is to create a foundation to help Ukrainian orphans.
“When we have won, we will have to rebuild Ukraine, so that there are as few broken destinies as possible, that families unite, that children feel the warmth of their new parents,” she said.
However, she does not believe that the situation is changing quickly.
“I would like to believe that Putin is no longer here, that a coup d’etat eliminated him (…), that everything will end in an instant, but it will take a long time for the wheel to turn and s “stops. When a car is going 150, it doesn’t stop in a second”.
This does not prevent her from dreaming of returning to Ukraine, of rebuilding a new home there.
“The first day after I return, I would just like to sit down and have a cup of hot tea, and the next day I will go to the flower shop to buy myself lots of green plants.”
21/02/2023 13:58:36 – Katowice (Pologne) (AFP) – © 2023 AFP
