Scenes from the Ukrainian Exodus

“In peaceful times we are the backbone of the economy” Alexander Kamishin, who is responsible for the Ukrainian railway system, said. “In times of war, we are the backbone of security.”

There were crowds at the main train station in Kyiv on Friday women holding children Wrapped up against the cold, they kissed the men they left behind to fight the Russian forces.

“Kids are screaming, mothers are screaming, this panic is so crazy,” Konstantyn Makarin, a 45-year-old circus acrobat, told NBC News correspondent Richard Engel. “People are so scared.”

Earlier this week, Ukraine’s State Border Guard Service announced that men aged 18 to 60 are banned from leaving the country after President Volodymyr Zelenskyy imposed martial law.

Only women, children and old people crowded the trains to Lemberg. And every time a platform was announced, the crowd ran madly towards the train, sometimes scrambling over the platforms.

“They’re trying to cram as many people on this train as possible,” Engel said. “It feels like we’ve gone back to World War II.”

Lviv, Ukraine

When the air raid sirens went off in Lviv on Friday, thousands of people crowded the main train station and there was nowhere to hide.

So the crowd, mostly women carrying babies or holding their children’s hands with whatever possessions they could grab in roll-up bags, ignored the sirens and went on chattering. But there was “desperation in her eyes,” NBC News producer Paul Goldman reported of the scene.

Meanwhile, Nate Mook from World Central Kitchen had settled near the train station and was trying to feed and comfort as many people as possible.

“It’s really heartbreaking to see what happens when families flee their homes and have to give up their lives,” he said.

The refugees who arrived in Lviv on Friday came mostly from Kharkiv, where some of the fiercest fighting has taken place.

“As you can see, there are a lot of little kids here, a lot of infants, a lot of babies,” he said. “It’s freezing outside. So it just gives them a place to regroup and they get a hot meal, they can catch their breath and figure out what’s next.”

Korczewo, Poland

One of the Ukrainian refugees who arrived in this border town on Friday was a 64-year-old named Anatoly, carrying a sack full of clothes and a guilty conscience.

Crying, Anatoly told NBC news producer Konstantin Shukhnov that his Borodyanka village, northwest of Kyiv, was attacked by Russian tanks a few days ago while he was visiting a friend.

He said his wife took refuge in the root basement of their home, but it was accidentally bombed by Ukrainian warplanes, which the Russians drove out.

Anatoly said that when he got to the house, he noticed that his wife was buried somewhere among the ruins. But when he saw the Russians coming back, he ran.

“I left my wife and I have no idea if she is dead or alive,” Anatoly said.

Krakow, Poland

Ukrainians who were able to get out say the idea of ​​not knowing what to do next was torture.

Olga Tsoi, a Ukrainian-American from Chicago, was visiting her family in the city of Kherson and said It took her 72 hours to do it to reach the Polish border.

Now settled in a Kraków hotel, she had nothing but praise for her Polish hosts but said she feared for her family in Kherson, now in Russian hands.

“Everyone’s really worried about what’s going to happen next because they’re running out of food and right now it’s not safe to go outside and go to a store,” she told MSNBC’s Chris Jansing.

Tsoi said she is trying to get her mother out of Kherson, but “there doesn’t seem to be any clear passage to bring my mother to the United States as she has no residency or visa”.

William Shaw, an American expat who lives in the old Polish town, told MSNBC he has taken in several Ukrainian refugees and that there is “a surge of goodwill” across Poland.

Poland has taken in almost 650,000 Ukrainian refugees the latest UN figureshalf of the 1.2 million people who have fled the country.

And the country has already hosted almost 2 million Ukrainians who arrived in 2014 after Russian President Vladimir Putin’s troops seized the Crimean peninsula.

When asked if Poland could take many more Ukrainians, Shaw said “absolutely not”.

“And that’s probably what Putin wanted, but we’ll do our best,” he said.