Saultite struggles to get Ukrainian relatives out of Poland (6 photos)

For Liliia Tsiupka, Oksana Kindrativ and their young children, the bus ride from Lviv to Warsaw under constant threat of Russian attack was stressful enough, but difficulty getting their passports stamped at the Canadian Embassy in Poland added to the hardship. 

Saultite Andrew Uschenko is frustrated and confused about why it's so hard to get his brother's family out of danger and to Canada even after our government said it would fast-track refugee processing.

Liliia is married to Andrew's brother, John, and they have a 10-month-old daughter together.

Liliia also has an adult daughter, Oksana, from a previous relationship and Oksana's son, Dem'yan, was born around the same time as John and Liliia's daughter. 

Together, the four of them fled the fighting in Ukraine early in March.

John, being a Canadian citizen, could have returned to Canada at any time, but has chosen to stay and fight in Ukraine, the country the former Saultite has called home for about the past six years.

"I worry about him every day," said Andrew. "It's the first thing I think about when I wake and the last when I sleep."

Andrew said the two women decided to stay in their village a short distance outside Lviv for as long as they could and that it was a difficult decision for them to leave Liliia's parents and the family farm behind. 

"It's so small there and there aren't even many real roads in the village," said Andrew. "Mostly just rough tracks. Few people in the village have cars. Many ride Vespas (electric scooters). It's about an hour's ride by Vespa to Lviv."

The village John and Liliia were raising their daughter in has less than 100 citizens. People who live there can almost all trace their family histories back hundreds of years in their homes. They are very independent, making, growing or caring for much of what they need in everyday life. 

"Visiting there was like walking back 100 years," Andrew said. "When we arrived last time, there was an old woman shewing cows off the road with a stick. It was peaceful and very agricultural."

It's springtime in Ukraine and time for John's family to prepare to plant the crops that would feed their families. They would want to fight for their land, each other and to stay there as long as they can, he explained.

So, when they finally decided it was time to go, the women assumed the hard part would be getting to Poland.

It was, indeed, difficult. All the trains were filled almost as soon as they arrived and they knew they had little chance to get on one.

There were no cars available to rent so the last option for the family was to board a bus in Lviv to make the dangerous roughly 450 km journey to Warsaw under the constant threat of shelling or other Russian attacks. 

There they would meet Andrew and his niece Kirsten Whiteway. Andrew and Kirsten would help them get whatever documentation they needed to go to Canada and they would fly out with them to Prince Edward Island to stay with Sheila Whiteway, Andrew and John's sister in Murray River where she has a house ready for them to move into.

The family is ready to buy the plane tickets but, after three weeks in Poland, they still can't leave because they are waiting for their passports to be 'fast-tracked' by staff in the Canadian embassy in Warsaw.

"Even though we all know the system well and have done everything we are supposed to do, we still don't know when they might be able to get out of the hotel and on a plane," Andrew said.

Andrew is a social worker, his partner a nurse. They know how to fill out forms and still can't get their family to safety, even though all the forms have been completed and submitted properly.

The plan was simple.

The two women and babies would do the hard part, getting themselves to Poland, then all Andrew and Kirsten had to do was pick them up and bring them home.

Andrew and his niece flew to Poland on March 7, meeting Liliia, Oksana and the two babies there when they arrived on March 8. 

Liliia and Oksana arrived in Poland with some baby food, diapers and a few changes of clothes in backpacks, a couple of plastic shopping bags with their things and their babies in carriers. 

They told Andrew it took only an hour to cross into Poland when they finally arrived at the border, but the normally seven-hour bus ride was much longer and more arduous than it would have been under usual circumstances.  

After a day of rest and rejuvenation, the whole family went to start the process of bringing the women and children home to Canada. They thought it wouldn't take more than a few days to get them on a plane. They believed media reports from the Prime Minister that the process had been streamlined to allow faster processing of refugees. All they needed were a couple of stamps on their passports.

Andrew began to worry when they arrived at the consulates.

Thousands of people thronged through snaking lines outside the Ukrainian consulate in Warsaw, waiting to get their passports stamped. It takes days just to get through that line, there are almost no places to sit and, despite the many aid stations and porta-potties, it's an ordeal. People must arrive very early, stand in the cold for hours and not leave their place in line or they will lose it and have to start over. 

But, said Andrew, it was infinitely more frustrating at the Canadian consulate.

"They don't come out and you can't get in," he said. "All the gates are closed and locked, guarded by armed guards behind plexiglass barriers."

The most confusing thing about it for him was the fact that they refuse to accept documentation in person at the consulate and it was difficult to find that out. The guard at the window was reluctant to share any information with the family but, after some persistent insistence, Andrew was able to find out that the documentation had to be couriered to the consulate. 

Everything has to be mailed or sent by courier. You can't even make an appointment or ask questions. If you try to call, no one answers the phone, it's almost impossible to figure out who to leave a message for and no one returns calls when you do leave a message, he said.

"If this is fast-tracking, I would hate to see what it would be like without the fast-track," he said wryly. "I speak English and advocated for the family. What about people who don't know their way around or speak English?"

He suggested that, at the very least, the Canadian government should hire and train more staff at the consulate to process the refugees fleeing the Russian invasion of Ukraine. 

He said that, when he asked a guard why he couldn't hand in documents at the gate, the guard told him it was a COVID safety measure. 

"Surely there must be a way to speed up the process and keep people safe," Andrew said with exasperation.

He has brought the matter to Sault Ste. Marie MP Terry Sheehan's office, saying the staff there was very friendly but haven't helped shorten the process at all.

"They opened a file for us but, really, what more can they do than check the portal the same as we do," he said.

Andrew and his family have been closely monitoring the Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) website (portal) to track the progress of documentation processing for Liliia, Oksana, Nadiia and Dem-yan and say it looks like the process has been complete for a few days but the women and children are still waiting for their passports to be returned to them. 

Meanwhile, they wait in their hotel room, trying to pass the time not worrying too much about John, the war, their family and home and the expenses increase. The family has started a GoFundMe page to help but the family is prepared to spend what they can to keep their Ukrainian relatives safe. 

Andrew and Kirsten stayed in Poland with Liliia, Oksana and the two babies as long as they could but had to leave on the flights they had booked for March 14 without the two women and their young children.