A 12-year-old girl fled the war in Ukraine for safety in Kansas City. This is her story
On Wednesday evening, a 12-year-old girl embraced her mother near the baggage claim at Kansas City International Airport, just three days after escaping war torn Ukraine.
Solomia Beregovska felt a wave of joy as she reunited with her mom.
As the two hugged, the girl saw her suitcase plop onto the turnstile, its blue and yellow ribbons splattered with blood drops tied neatly in a bow around the handle bar.
Just two weeks ago, Beregovska had led a normal life as a fifth grader living with her grandparents on the outskirts of Ivano-Frankivsk, a city in western Ukraine. But that changed overnight when Russian forces invaded Feb. 24, forcing her to flee to Poland and later Missouri, where both of her parents live.
“That was my home,” she said Thursday from her father’s house in Kansas City.
“I miss my friends. I miss talking to them. I miss realizing I’m not far from them … I miss ... I just miss this feeling: being home.”
Her father, Alexey Ladokhin, is a professor of biochemistry at the University of Kansas School of Medicine.
“Solomia has shown that she has grit,” he said. “She is tough and I am very proud.”
Life in Ukraine
When Beregovska was three months old, she moved from her birthplace of Columbia, Missouri, to her maternal grandparents’ home in Ivano-Frankivsk.
There she attended school, made friends and developed close ties with the other 20 members of her family still living throughout Ukraine, including her father’s parents who live in Kyiv.
As she’s gotten older, she has learned more about her family’s history: her mother’s grandfather was a resistance fighter who fought against Soviet forces in the 1950s and died as a young man; her father’s grandfather, a professor, was executed by the KGB’s purge of intellectuals in Eastern Ukraine in the 1930s. The stories kept the family steeped in national pride and left the 12-year-old yearning to learn more.
During summers when Beregovska visited her father in Kansas City, the two delighted over Ukrainian politics and culture.
She had last seen her father when Ladokhin visited for Christmas.
The two said goodbye a few days later at Ivano-Frankivsk International Airport. The plan was to bring Beregovska to the U.S. this summer and for her to attend school in Missouri this fall.
But then Russia attacked.
‘Glory to the heroes’
At 7:20 a.m. Feb. 24, Beregovska walked out of her room ready for school. Her grandfather told her a war had started.
Beregovska rushed to the kitchen window and saw clouds of black smoke pouring into a darkened sky in the direction of the airport.
“I ran up to my room again because my room has big windows and we saw more smoke coming and it felt like something froze inside me,” she said.
The Ivano-Frankivsk International Airport had been bombed.
Beregovska did not go to school that day.
She began watching the news with her grandparents, who are in their 70s. Even though Ivano-Frankivsk was one of the safer cities, they put together bags they could take in an emergency. Her grandparents withdrew cash from a bank and stocked up at the supermarket, where people were lined up to get in. While waiting she texted her father.
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She told him about the airport where they had seen each other two months prior.
“Stay calm and help your grandparents,” he said in a text message.
He then texted the first part of Ukraine’s national salute.
“Glory to Ukraine,” Ladokhin said.
“Glory to the heroes,” she replied.
Bus ride with a stranger
As Russia continued to encroach, sirens sounded several times a day signaling another missile had been fired. Beregovska would run to the basement cellar, unsure whether the next target would be her home.
Many of her friends had already fled. More than two million Ukrainians have left the country, according to the Associated Press, though many have encountered challenges escaping along dangerous routes.
Beregovska’s mother began trying to get her daughter, a U.S. citizen, out of Ukraine, while her grandfather also started making arrangements with a family friend who lived in Kyiv who offered to help.
On Monday, Beregovska boarded a bus with the woman and her 7-year-old child, whom she had never met.
Her grandparents had given her a backpack filled with bread, homemade pie and store bought snacks. She also had $1,000 in cash, immigration documents and the suitcase with the yellow and blue ribbons. It had drops of blood from Beregovska’s grandmother who had hurt herself cutting the colorful strands with a knife. The blood had discolored part of the blue, turning it a deep red and black, matching the flag of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, which her father’s grandfather had fought for decades ago.
“We thought this must mean something,” she said.
Crossing the Polish border
The drive to the Polish border took three hours, much longer than it normally would. Beregovska watched her homeland pass by. Children on the bus screamed as others paced.
Once they arrived, they spent another 18 hours sitting on the bus waiting to get across the border.
“We had no idea how long we would be there,” Beregovska said.
She slept four hours Tuesday night as border patrol agents checked the immigration documents of loads of people on buses. Sirens sounded throughout the night.
She listened to other people’s stories of fleeing and played a word game with other children to pass the time.
Eventually an agent checked their bus and they were on their way to Warsaw.
“It was unbelievable luck that she was able to clear Poland in two days,” Ladokhin said.
She arrived in Warsaw and stayed with a professor that Ladokhin’s mother knew who had volunteered to help people fleeing.
Beregovska and the woman from Kyiv slept only a few hours that night.
“We just became friends because of the situation,” she said.
At 3 a.m. Wednesday, they left for Warsaw Chopin Airport. When an airline employee tried to stop the woman and her 7-year-old child from boarding, Beregovska said she started panicking.
“I understood that I had to do something and I just started talk,” she said.
The 12-year-old explained the vaccination status of the woman, who does not speak English. By intervening and clarifying that the woman had the necessary documents, they were able to catch their flight with just minutes to spare.
New chapter in Missouri
After landing in London, they went on to Chicago and finally arrived in Kansas City Wednesday evening.
The 12-year-old is now with her father in Kansas City and plans on staying with her mother in Kirksville, Missouri, where she will attend school.
She wants to teach others about Ukraine’s history and why she keeps her blue and yellow ribbons close.
“During our whole history, there were people who fought for our independence and from the very start there were people who wanted to force our country into submission,” Beregovska said during a phone interview at her father’s home.
“But they will not succeed,” Ladokhin declared over the phone’s speaker.
“No, they will not,” Beregovska agreed.
As she was settling in, she also called her grandparents. While she knows she had to leave Ukraine, she worries about them.
“They said they missed me. They missed talking to me and missed me walking around the house. And I missed them too,” she said. “I will come back no matter what.”
This story was originally published March 11, 2022 at 5:00 AM.
