Durban - A year after a Durban grandfather earned the moniker, James Bond, for his epic escape from war-torn Ukraine, Raymond Satish Ramjiawan, recalled how he was woken up by sirens and then learnt that Russian forces had invaded the country.
It was February 24, 2022, and the 70-year-old uMhlanga businessman was sleeping in his hotel room in Kyiv.
As the sirens rang out he received a panicked telephone call from a Ukrainian friend advising him to pack a small bag of essentials and be ready to leave.
This was just hours after Ramjiawan’s family learnt where he was because he had flown to Ireland before going to Kyiv.
What followed was six days of criss-crossing the country, at times hitchhiking or walking. He eventually reached safety by tapping into a long established network of business contacts and friends.
Ramjiawan trudged through snow, sheltered in bunkers with friends, ran up and down flights of stairs to evacuate buildings as the sirens rang out warnings of imminent attacks.
As the army vehicles rolled into Kyiv and traffic carrying people fleeing the city became heavier, Ramjiawan finally got to the Ukraine/Poland border.
From Poland he flew to France, then Johannesburg and finally Durban.
This week he told the Independent on Saturday that despite promising his worried family that he would only return once there was peace, he had again travelled to Ukraine in October and only revealed this upon his return to South Africa.
“I didn’t want them to panic but I wanted to check up on my friends,” he said.
This time he boarded a train in Poland’s capital, Warsaw, to travel to Kyiv because the air space over Ukraine is closed.
“Entering Ukraine you hear the sirens from time to time. Most of the shopping centres are not busy, restaurants are closed and lots of buildings are flattened. Outside Kyiv many towns are demolished and the curfew is 11pm. If you are out after 11pm you can end up in jail,” he said.
Ramjiawan said despite the ongoing attacks and the destruction of the electricity grid and other infrastructure by Russia, the Ukrainians were resilient and trying to get on with their lives, despite the war.
The businessman, who imports yellow peas (dhal), millet and oats from Ukraine to South Africa, said Ukraine’s farming sector had suffered heavily because of the war; crops were much smaller than usual and the economy had contracted by 40%.
However, what was continuously on the rise was the support for Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelensky. The president, formerly a comedian and actor, entered politics and was voted into power on an anti-corruption ticket.
“He was serious about politics and had a high percentage of votes. But his popularity was declining before the war, after the war started his popularity increased,” said Ramjiawan.
He said it appeared that Russia was trying to re-establish its former empire and if Ukraine lost the war they would target other countries like Moldova.
Meanwhile, his friends in Russia have repeatedly told him they only had access to state news and were unaware of what was really happening. Many Russians had fled their country.
For now, Ramjiawan says he won’t return to Ukraine but that’s out of choice not because he was afraid.
He said visiting Ukraine was not a sign of bravery, because given the fact that there were 30 to 40 million people in Ukraine it was unlikely that he would be attacked or killed
“You are at risk in any place, risk is always there,” he said.
The Independent on Saturday