"I can't talk now, they're bombing," the story of a Cuban in Ukraine

[Judi Lynn]

Raidel Arbelay was born in November 1970 in San Juan de los Yeras, a small town in Villa Clara; he has lived in Ukraine since 1996.

by Aliet Arzola Lima March 4, 2022

It’s after ten p.m. in the urban district of Darnitsa, southeast of Kyiv. Raidel Arbelay, a Cuban who lives in one of the buildings in the area, is sitting in the corner of the living room, away from the windows of his home, in the dark. The only light in the room comes from the screen of his cell phone, which lights up over and over again due to the messages that arrive, from Nikolaev — in the south of Ukraine — as well as from Poland or San Juan de los Yeras…

Outside, a light drizzle is falling and it’s a bit cold, maybe one or two degrees, but nothing significant for a country adapted to living below zero around this time. Arbelay has just arrived home after a more than 700-kilometer trip, but he is still dressed: he is wearing a gray sweater with a hood, dark jeans and boots, as if he suspected that he is going to have to go out at any moment.

“Here the situation is now tense again. All day I hadn’t seen any operations, it seems they were waiting for the talks to end, but a moment ago there were two bomb explosions to destroy a military unit that is nearby and my windows almost shattered,” Arbelay tells me. He is one of the many people who is living firsthand each chapter of the Russian military operations and the Ukrainian resistance in the most recent war conflict that has humanity in tenterhooks.

In the last few days, Raidel has hardly slept a wink. He is afraid — he tells me — and every night he begs for God’s protection: “I shiver, I had never felt like this before. It’s something I don’t wish on anyone, that feeling of not knowing what’s going to happen if you go to bed.”

More:
https://oncubanews.com/en/world/europe/i-cant-talk-now-theyre-bombing-the-story-of-a-cuban-in-ukraine/

[secondwind]

1. Very sad, the story he is telling.