Photo 1. Dmytro Zharyy, 38 years old. A man in a wheelchair is sitting in front of a pond in a green sunlit park. He is thin but his face is round and ruddy. Dmytro has short dark hair with bangs that barely cover his forehead, a broad moustache and a bristly beard. The look of his grey down-turned eyes is directed into the lens. His small narrow lips are smiling. The man is dressed in a light grey-blue sweater.

dmytro zharyy

dnipro -> zurich

Dmytro Zharyy was born on 4th November 1984 in Dnipro (PHOTO 1). He has been using a wheelchair since the age of thirteen.  Until 24th February 2022, Dmytro lived in Dnipro and worked as a lawyer in a Norwegian human rights organisation.

"I WOKE UP TO

EXPLOSIONS AT 4:30 A.M."

Dmytro Zharyy lived on the outskirts of the city, near the airport where military units were located. Therefore, the intensification of hostilities was felt immediately. At first, it was scary but then there was an unprecedented sense of determination to resist.

I remember that I did not know whether to wake my family who was sleeping at that time. I decided not to wake them up, to give them the opportunity to wake up normally so that it would be their peaceful morning, another one. I knew that there wouldn’t be such peaceful mornings for a long, long time”.

Since autumn, the man has been understanding that Russia was planning to attack Ukraine from several fronts. That is why Dmytro made some preparations for a full-scale invasion. For example, he convinced his father to buy extra gasoline to be ready for an emergency evacuation.

In the first days of the full-scale invasion, Dmytro was monitoring the development literally around the clock. Meanwhile, air raids were becoming more frequent in Dnipro, and there was no accessible shelter near Dmytro’s apartment. He and his parents were hiding near the elevator shaft.

"DNIPRO PROVED

ITSELF EXEMPLARY"

Just the next day after the full-scale Russian invasion, residents of Dnipro began to actively prepare for the defence of their city.

On the second day, all the residents of our house started to actively prepare to resist. People were making Molotov cocktails, people began to destroy various marks that could be used to guide some enemy sabotage groups… I was extremely touched and proud of how people were preparing to defend Ukraine”.

At that time, Dmytro Zharyy began to advise people engaged in human rights and civil society activities who found themselves surrounded on the possibilities of evacuation and treatment in case of detention.

"WE DID NOT WANT TO LEAVE"

Sense of patriotism and resistance were halting thoughts about evacuation from Dnipro. However, having studied the movement of Russian troops, Dmytro decided to evacuate. The best means of transport was, in his opinion, railway transport.

I knew that in trains … there were no special carriages for people with disabilities. They have been solving everything on the spot. I called representatives of the state authorities who deal with people with disabilities and asked for help. I said that I [need to — editor’s note] have special conditions, I’m in a wheelchair, and whether it is possible to somehow arrange it so that I at least board the train because there were very high steps and they just won’t be able to lift me there”.

Dmytro was promised help. For 24 hours he and his parents were ready to take off at any moment, waiting for a call confirming the evacuation. The man decided to go to the train station on his own and solve this issue there. Accessible transport from home to the railway station was provided by Tetiana Barantsova — Government Commissioner for the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

Dmytro and his parents arrived at the station late in the evening on 2nd March. The station was half full. No trains were expected in the nearest hours. The man asked the station manager for help. However, he told Dmytro to wait.

Dmytro did not stop looking for ways to evacuate. He wrote to the mayor of Dnipro asking for someone to escort him while boarding the train. Two hours later, a station employee came up to them and called them to the train “Zaporizhzhia — Lviv”.

The train was already full. But since people had already boarded there was no crowd. Several soldiers lifted me up. It was catastrophic because there were very high steps, and the staircase was as high as a man, and it was impossible to lift me with a wheelchair. Therefore, they were just pulling me little by little, they almost broke my leg. But they lifted me, after all. They asked one person who occupied the berth to sit down and put me next to them. My parents also sat down. Then they brought my wheelchair folded”.

Within an hour, the train made several stops to pick up more people. As a result, 5–6 people were sitting on each berth. The train was moving fast, passengers were forbidden to use mobile phones, and there was an air alert in Ukraine.

“The atmosphere was like in the movies about the Second World War. When you watch about echelons going nowhere. And you have exactly the same feeling when you are going, and you do not know where you are going, whether you will be back, what is waiting for you there. You are going, not knowing at all where you are going, just to get out [from the war — translator’s note]”.

In the evening of 3rd March, Dmytro Zharyy arrived in Lviv. He was the last to get out of the carriage. Three people assisted him: his mother, father and conductor. There were 3–4 hours left before the curfew. The family needed to immediately look for transport to the Ukrainian-Polish border so that they don’t have to spend the night at the station. All buses that went to the checkpoint were inaccessible for wheelchair users.

The only option left was a car. Dmytro and his parents managed to find a taxi driver who was ready to take them to the border checkpoint “Hrushiv” for 4 thousand hryvnias. Since there was almost nothing to choose from, they agreed.

There was a long queue and a crush at the border.

I stood in line. But people started crowding, crushing. I realized that it won’t be long until I find myself inside and those who were behind me, they would not see me, and they would crush, someone would fall on me, and just flatten me. So, I left the queue, drove up to the border guard, and said that I would stand next to him as long as necessary … because in the queue they would just kill me, they would flatten me”.

Dmytro stood there for about six hours. Then he and his parents moved to the buffer zone where they stood for several more hours. When it was Dmytro’s turn, he faced a problem that was acute even in the first days of the full-scale war: the border crossing procedure for people with disabilities, especially for men.

Then two border guards came and asked me for a document proving my disability. I only showed the document that I usually take with me — a pension certificate. I move in a wheelchair and have a disability that is actually visually obvious. I never had problems when crossing the border before… The documents I showed them, they said they were not sufficient. They said: ‘We can't let you out. You are at a good age, go back and defend Ukraine.’ I told them: ‘It would be an honor for me, and I would gladly go back and sit somewhere in a tank or in a trench, but I can’t even pull the trigger of a machine gun".

For more than an hour, the man stayed between the borders of Ukraine and Poland, not knowing whether they would let him through. Eventually, a border guard came out and gave Dmytro the go-ahead to cross the border.

"WHAT TO DO NEXT —

THESE ARE IMAGINARY PLANS"

On the night of 4 th March 2022, Dmytro Zharyy managed to cross the Ukrainian-Polish border. There, volunteers found by the Fight For Right NGO were waiting for him to evacuate Dmytro and his parents.

Фото 2. На тлі чорного мінівена стоять двоє усміхнених чоловіків середнього віку. Ліворуч — лисий із сивою бородою, одягнений у куртку кольору хакі та світло-коричневі штани. Праворуч — кароокий із короткою чорною бородою. На ньому чорна шапка, темно-синя куртка й теж світло-коричневі штани. Дверцята авто відчинені. У ньому сидять і теж усміхаються в об’єктив батьки Дмитра: сивий чоловік років шістдесяти у чорній куртці та світловолоса жінка його віку у рожевій. Позаду них сам Дмитро в темній шапці. Попереду — водій, та видно тільки його руку, що розслаблено лежить на кермі.

Initially, the volunteers took Dmytro to the nearest refugee centre. Although the centre was not adapted for people who use wheelchairs, the man managed to get a hot meal and peaceful sleep for the first time in three days.In the morning, the volunteers suggested he move to Lublin, to a more comfortable room. Dmytro stayed there for a week, planning evacuation to Norway where the office of the company he had been working for was located. It was important for Dmytro that he was provided with accessible housing in Norway but his colleagues could not guarantee it.

Therefore, the man once again turned to Fight For Right with a request to find an accessible shelter for him. He was offered options in Austria and Switzerland. Since Dmytro was engaged in international law and human rights and was speaking English, Switzerland where many international organisations were headquartered seemed the most promising country for him to move to and find work in.

"THIS IS MY LIFE,

AND IT DEPENDS ON ME"

In mid-March, Dmytro Zharyy and his parents left Warsaw for Zurich. Their shelter was located in the town of Wolen, canton of Aargau. Dmytro and his parents were allocated a room each in the centre for people with psychosocial disabilities.

‍

On 4th May, Dmytro managed to move to Zurich to a centre that provided services specifically for people with physical disabilities.

Дмитро Жарий (ліворуч), Вікторія Харченко (друга ліворуч), Ірина Федорович (друга праворуч), Юлія Сачук (праворуч), 17 серпня 2022 року, Женева (Швейцарія).

In Switzerland, Dmytro takes an active part in social life: he participates in discussions on strategies for providing social services for refugees from Ukraine, especially those with disabilities; gives interviews to local media, attends local and international conferences, and is looking for a job.

If I have the opportunity to be useful here [in Switzerland — editor’s note], to work here and support my parents, my homeland, I will gladly do it. If there is an opportunity to return to Ukraine and keep being useful there I will do it with an even more joyful heart”.

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