The Ukrainian who walked 225 kilometres to safety from war-ravaged Mariupol

Along with the residents of Ukrainian city of Mariupol stories of grit, bravery and sheer courage
Have continued to emerge from the horrors of war inflicted by the Russian forces.

Such is the story of Igor Pedin, a 61-year-old man accompanied by his 9-year-old dog, who left his home in the Port city of Mariupol on 23 April and had to walk 225 kilometres to reach safety.

According to a report by The Guardian, Pedin left home after he witnessed Russian troops going home to home in his neighbourhood and firing at civilians at will.

Carrying a backpack filled with his belongings, which weighed 50 kilograms, Pedin hit the road with his dog Zhu-Zhu, a mongrel terrier.

The treacherous journey through a hellscape

The decision to leave the city was easier than actually being able to exit the city. The duo left at dawn on 23 April by traversing five kilometres to the city outskirts.

It took him two hours to stumble through the craters, twisted steel and unexploded ordnance, through Kyprino Street, where dead bodies were strewn, to reach the Port City shopping mall.

Avoiding eye contact from Russian soldiers who were handing out food and water at the end of long queues of desperate ashen-faced people, Pedin walked up Zaporizhzhia Road.

Walking cautiously out of the city and towards the nearest town of Nikolke, Pedin and Zhu-Zhu came across burnt-out military vehicles and a convoy of armoured vehicles that just swept past.

As he tried to walk through the town, Pedin was stopped by Chechens, who sent him back to Nikolske.

He was brought to a two-storey building where four military women scanned “my fingerprints, put me up against a wall and took mugshots.”

Pedin was free to leave after he was given a document from the so-called ministry of internal affairs of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic.

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Back at the checkpoint, the Chechens kept him sitting for two more hours telling that he would be taken to the next village at Rozivka in the next car. As he waited, the Chechens talked to him and gave him cigarettes.

After an hour, a black minivan pulled up and the Chechens demanded that the driver, who was travelling with his wife and two daughters, aged about 18 and 20, take Pedin.

“No one said a word. They took me to Rozivka. On the way, I noticed in the fields large diggers digging up holes. And further down there were crosses. I am sure they were mass graves.”

Now carrying his new identity document, Pedin walked past another checkpoint out of Rozivka with ease and to the next village, Verzhyna.

It was already dark when he reached Verzhyna.

“Suddenly flashlights blinded me. There were six soldiers, they barked at me, I put up my hands. They told me to take my top off, emptied my bag. It was freezing. They ordered me to follow them. We went inside the House of Culture [a community centre] which was their headquarters,” Pedin said, as quoted by The Guardian.

After being given some canned beef and soup, he was put in a small room that had a steel bed in the corner. He was told that if he left earlier than the morning that he would be shot – but was free to go the following day.

Next day, he walked for 14 hours before reaching another checkpoint at around 8pm to be frisked again. The soldiers pointed him towards a small abandoned house where he could sleep. But he was off again at 6am as the sun rose.

“I saw a big man in his 60s. He asked, ‘Where are you from?’ I said Mariupol, and he called his wife to bring food. They gave me a bag of bread, onion, fried pork, and cucumber. They insisted. And I walked on.”

An exhausted Pedin was yet to come across his greatest obstacle – a road bridge that had been destroyed, leaving a 30-metre sheer drop onto railway tracks below.

The bridge’s metal frame was still in place, however, with two beams: one narrow one below and one broader one at shoulder height.

Pedin tied up his dog with his bag and tested the crossing. It was doable. He went back and crossed again with his bag. Then he returned and took his dog, who walked on the beam above, with Pedin holding the lead. “I just shouted, ‘We did it.’”

Upon reaching the next checkpoint, the soldier demanded to know where his companion was as they wanted to know how he crossed the bridge.

Pedin was told he could stay the night in the back half of a radio van that had been hit by a Ukrainian shell at the front.

The bored soldiers turned to Pedin to hear his adventurous journey thus far.

Five gathered around him, to hear of his adventures, and daring deeds across the bridge.

“One wanted to keep in touch, he was saying that after the war I should stay with him. There was nothing for me to say.”

The next morning, he was told he was not allowed to carry on via the road to Zaporizhzhia but had to choose to go back or south to the city of Tokmak.

Heading towards the city, Pedin faced two big hills.

“The dog just couldn’t go on. I had to walk up the road with my bag, and then come back for him and carry him up. I said, ‘If you don’t walk we will both die, you have to walk.’ He walked up the next hill,” he recalled.

After reaching the village of Tarasivka, he traded some of the soldiers’ cigarettes with a man who told Pedin that the only way to Zaporizhzhia was on small roads and over a dam and then to take what he said was the smugglers’ track.

He did as he was instructed. But after the dam, there was a crossroads – and no indication of which way to go. Pedin’s luck struck again.

“A truck appeared. I called out. I said, ‘I am from Mariupol.’ The door opened. We drove for two hours, through weaving roads. I would have never found my way. We said nothing. At the checkpoints, this man said just two words to the Donetsk People’s Republic militia and he was let through.”

Pedin saw a Ukrainian flag at a distance, where soldiers checked their documents and let them go.

“The driver dropped me in central Zaporizhzhia by a tent. He had said nothing on the journey but gave me 1,000 hryvnia (£30). He said good luck. He understood everything – what was there to say?”

Finally in a friendly territory, Pedin walked into a tent full of volunteers. He was asked by a woman whether he needed help. He went quiet and then said yes.

“The lady asked, ‘where have you come from?’ I said, ‘I have come from Mariupol.’ She screamed: ‘Mariupol!’” Pedin recalls with a smile.

“She shouted out to everyone, this man has come from Mariupol on foot. Everyone stopped. I suppose it was my moment of glory.”

With inputs from agencies

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