Svitlana Kotova held out as long as she could in her home in Mariupol, but when shrapnel from a Russian rocket left a hole in her kitchen in early April, she knew it was time to leave.
Ms. Kotova and her 16-year old son packed what they could and managed to drive to Russian-controlled Berdyansk. From there they got to Zaporizhia, thanks to an evacuation organized by the International Red Cross, and then across the border to Warsaw with the help of a Polish charity called HumanDoc.
Ms. Kotova left behind her husband, a soldier who was among the last remaining fighters in the sprawling Azovstal steel plant. He’s now being held by the Russian army and she worries about him constantly. She’s joined a group of soldiers’ wives who have been calling for the men to be released in a prisoner exchange.
And now that she is in Warsaw, she’s also joined a small team of women who are providing legal help to Ukrainian refugees in Poland.
Ms. Kotova, who worked as an accountant in Mariupol, is helping to run the Centre for Legal and Professional Assistance. It offers free advice on a range of issues, such as divorce, immigration and employment matters, as well as how to seek compensation for property damage caused by the war.
The centre opened on June 8 and it’s staffed by four Ukrainian lawyers who are all refugees. It operates out of a brightly-lit office space in the Plac Unii shopping mall in central Warsaw. The clinic is supported financially by HumanDoc, Plan International and the...
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