With a plastic bag, a passport and a Slovak license plate as luggage, the boy traveled more than 1,100 kilometers.
“Little big heroes” of the war. Since the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24, more than two million refugees have been forced to leave the country. Among them is a little boy, only 11 years old, who, after an endless journey of more than 1,100 kilometers, managed to reach the Slovak border, a country in which 128,000 Ukrainians have already taken refuge.
“Thank you for saving my son’s life”
His mother, Yuliya Pisetskaya, was forced to put the child alone on a westbound train with a plastic bag, a passport and a Slovak phone number written on her arm.
A resident of Zaporozhye, a city where a nuclear power plant burned down last week after a Russian strike, Yulia was unable to accompany him because she has to take care of her ailing mother.
When he arrived in Slovakia, the child was taken care of by border guards. As The Guardian explains, the phone number matched the number of relatives of the family living in Bratislava, who were finally able to take care of the young traveler.
“Thank you for saving my son’s life. There was a fire near my house, there was a nuclear power plant, it was under attack. I can’t leave my mother here, she can’t move, so I sent my son alone to the border,” Yulia Pisetskaya explains in the video document.
On social networks, the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Slovakia reported that the child “conquered everyone with his smile, fearlessness and determination, worthy of a real hero.”