Ukrainian mother and son build new life in Sudbury, Ont., after fleeing war

To protect her teenage son, Tetiana Yurinets made the difficult decision in August to pack up two bags and leave Ukraine for a country, and city, she knew almost nothing about.

After arriving in Toronto, the mother and son decided to settle in Sudbury, Ont., where there was already a community of Ukrainian newcomers and some networks in place to support them.

According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), more than six million Ukrainians have fled the country since Russia's invasion began on Feb. 24, 2022.

The vast majority have ended up in other parts of Europe, but many, including Yurinets and 14-year-old Volkan Yukselen, have settled in Canada.

As of Jan. 27, the Canada-Ukraine authorization for emergency travel has approved 958,190 applications.

Yurinets said she made the last-minute decision to leave after she was nearly killed by a rocket attack at her work in the western city of Lviv.

Earlier, she had won two plane tickets in a raffle held by a Canadian organization that allowed donors to give away their Air Miles to Ukrainians looking to flee the country.

"We left Ukraine with the train to Poland," she said.

These days I am already putting much more effort to settle in Canada and to give my kid a future here.- Tetiana Yurinets, who left Ukraine with her son in August

The decision to leave happened so fast, Yurinets said, that her son didn't have time to say goodbye to his friends.

"I just kind of disappeared one day," Yukselen said. "So I kind of regret that."

At the start of the war, Yurinets landed a job as a fixer, working for a Japanese news network. She said it was a good job and allowed her to save money before she left the country.

But as the war continued, her hours got cut.

"When the war started, everybody was following the war in Ukraine," she said.

"But after six months, people started to get used to this and then other countries were also like, 'OK, the war in Ukraine is still going.'"

Adjusting to Sudbury

Thanks to her savings, and support from charitable organizations early on, she found a basement apartment in Sudbury's Donovan neighbourhood.

When she heard her apartment would be near Sudbury's downtown, she said, she was ecstatic at first.

"We usually consider the central part of the city is the most stunning and everybody wants to live very close to downtown in Europe because this is where we spent the majority of the time."

But she learned Sudbury was more car-reliant than most European cities.

"It's challenging if you do not have a car to see Sudbury itself," Yurinets said.

Soon after her arrival, Yurinets started volunteering for Better Beginnings, Better Futures, an organization that runs a number of children's programs in the city.

On Feb. 15, she landed a job offer as a part-time customer service representative at a bank.

She said the job offer arrived just in time as her savings were starting to run low.

"It's not easy to find a job when you are a newcomer, when you do not have Canadian education," Yurinets said.

Her son is in Grade 9 at Sudbury Secondary School, where he has shown an interest in theatre arts.

"Since almost day one I had people I knew I could, you know, just talk to at some point during lunch break or any other event like that," he said.

"I think it was very easy to just blend in."

When she first arrived in Sudbury, Yurinets planned to return to Ukraine one day. But now she's less certain that will be possible.

"I do not believe that with the war we can win," Yurinets said.

She hopes a diplomatic solution will be possible to bring a peaceful resolution for her country.

But for now, she's focused on building a new life in Sudbury.

"These days I am already putting much more effort to settle in Canada and to give my kid a future here."