98-year-old woman walked kilometers in flip-flops to escape Russians in Ukraine – War in Ukraine

A 98-year-old woman escaped from Russian-occupied territory in Ukraine by walking almost 10 kilometers alone, with flip-flops and a walking stick, having already been reunited with her family after being separated while fleeing to safe places.

Lydia Stepanivna Lomikovska and her family decided to leave the frontline town of Ocheretyne in the eastern Donetsk region last week after Russian troops entered and fighting intensified.

The Russians have been advancing in the region, attacking Kiev’s exhausted and ammunition-deprived forces with artillery, drones and bombs, reported the Associated Press (AP).

“I woke up surrounded by gunfire — so scary,” Lomikovska said in a video interview published by the National Police of the Donetsk region.

In the chaos of the match, Lomikovska was separated from her son and two daughters-in-law, including one, Olha Lomikovska, who was injured by shrapnel days earlier.

The younger members of the family took secondary paths, but Lydia wanted to stay on the main road.

With a cane in one hand and balancing on a pair of slippers, the elderly woman walked all day without food and water to reach the Ukrainian lines.

When describing her journey, the nonagenarian said she fell twice and was forced to stop to rest at times, even falling asleep on the way before waking up and continuing the journey.

“Once I lost my balance and fell into the bush. I fell asleep for a while and kept walking. And then, for the second time, I fell again. But then I got up and thought to myself: I need to keep walking, little by little'” , highlighted Lomikovska.

Pavlo Diachenko, acting spokesman for the Ukrainian National Police in the Donetsk region, said that Lomikovska was saved when Ukrainian soldiers spotted her walking along the road at night.

They handed her over to the “White Angels”, a police group that evacuates citizens living on the front lines, who then took her to a shelter for displaced people and contacted her family.

“I survived that war”, said the elderly woman, in reference to the Second World War.

“I also had to go through this war and in the end I am left with nothing,” he added.

Lomikovska stressed that the Second World War was not like this: “Not a single house burned down. But now everything is on fire.”

In the latest twist in this ‘adventure’, the executive director of one of Ukraine’s largest banks announced this Tuesday, on his Telegram social network channel, that the bank will buy a house for the elderly woman.

“Monobank will buy a house for Lydia Stepanivna and she will certainly live in it until the moment this abomination disappears from our land,” assured Oleh Horokhovskyi.