Refugees fleeing Ukraine grab documents, pets, some photos

Life or death choices leave little time for sentiment

SIRET, Romania -- Life or death choices leave little time for sentiment. War refugees fleeing Russian ordnance grabbed only the essentials for their journeys to safety: key documents, a beloved pet, often not even a change of clothes.

Lena Nesterova remembers the hour her fate was sealed: Feb. 24, 5:34 a.m., the first explosions in the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, that signaled the feared Russian invasion.

Driven by fear, she said, they took “only daughter, dog, all the documents, and left' Kyiv with only the clothes on their backs.

“We left everything. We have no clothes, nothing,” Nesterova said, adding. “And we don’t know what will be after.”