98-year-old Ukrainian woman miraculously survived after walking 10 km through war zones in Donetsk

Lidia Stepanivna, 98, walked 10km through war zones in eastern Ukraine to escape Ocheretyne, a village in Russian-occupied Pokrovsk District, Donetsk Oblast. The old woman left her home behind and crossed the front line without water or food, supported by a cane, to reach the areas controlled by Kiev.

In a video posted by Ukrainian police on social media on Monday, the woman, identified as Lidia Stepanivna, said she walked without food or water and despite falling and bumping herself several times, ” character” made her continue the journey, writes Reuters.

“I survived that war (World War II) and I’m surviving this war,” Stepanivna says in the video, which shows her sitting on a bed in a Ukrainian shelter, wearing an oversized coat and a scarf tied around her head, wearing a wooden stick in hand. “I was left with nothing. But I walked on my feet, in my Ukraine.”

Lidia walked all day without food or water, collapsed from exhaustion several times. She was helped by a cane and her “character”. In the midst of the bombings, the old woman miraculously remained alive and unharmed.

She said the war Russia is now waging against her country is nothing like World War II.

“Houses are burning and trees are uprooted,” she said.

Ukraine’s Interior Ministry said in a statement on its website that the woman was discovered by the Ukrainian army and handed over to the police, who took her to an evacuee shelter.

“The law enforcement officers are looking for the woman’s relatives,” the ministry said.

The war, now in its third year, has killed thousands, turned Ukrainian towns and villages into ruins and displaced millions.

Publisher: MI

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