‘Next thing you know, we’re in Poland’: Idaho man helps Ukrainians flee Russian invasion
Rob Sturgill of Kimberly was in Idaho on March 6, when the idea struck him that he could go to Ukraine to assist refugees fleeing the Russian invasion.
By March 11, less than a week later, he was in Ukraine, and by Tuesday he had helped transport about 60 Ukrainians deep into neighboring Poland.
“Watching the news and seeing these fathers hugging their wives and their children, it really pulled my heart this direction,” Sturgill said in an interview with the Idaho Statesman from Poland, where he and several friends were working to coordinate the arrival of refugees late into the evening.
Some 2 million Ukrainians have streamed into Poland in recent weeks, escaping a Russian blitzkrieg that has so far killed an estimated thousands of people.
“It just hit me that we could do something, and the idea of going to the rescue of these refugees, of getting them from the border to the homes of the people in Poland that are welcoming them in, we could do that,” he said. “Next thing you know, we’re in Poland.”
Since then, Sturgill and five others — including his brother — have rented three vans and are shuttling Ukrainian families who have arrived at refugee centers in Polish border towns to Krakow or other parts of the county, where they are being hosted by Polish families, staying in hotels or traveling farther into Europe.
On Wednesday, he said he’d managed about eight hours of sleep over the previous four days.
The group also packed donated medical supplies and even a box of military gear to bring with them on their flight to Europe, Sturgill said.
In large part, Sturgill said the families he meets are only women and children, as many Ukrainian men have stayed behind in case they are needed to fight the Russian invaders.
The Ukrainians are transported from the border in buses by the Polish government, Sturgill said, and taken to refugee relief centers, two of which are a former shopping mall and a warehouse. From there, people like Sturgill and his group pick up travelers and take them where they need to go.
The three-week-old invasion that has already displaced millions of Ukrainians, both internally and externally, is the fastest-growing refugee crisis on the European continent since World War II, Florian Justwan, an associate professor of political science at the University of Idaho, told the Statesman.
So far, the Russian military has shown it “doesn’t really take into account the distinction between civilian targets and military targets” and is “indiscriminately” bombarding apartment buildings, hospitals and schools in Ukrainian cities, Justwan said, noting that Russian forces have used this strategy in previous conflicts.
“That’s one of the big reasons why people are trying to leave the country,” he said. “They’re fleeing for their lives and livelihoods.”
The majority of external refugees have so far fled to Poland, which Justwan said is an attractive shelter as a member of the European Union, which has so far promised significant protection for people displaced by the conflict.
But Justwan said recent reports suggest Polish refugee centers are nearing capacity, and that other EU countries, such as Germany and France, will soon need to take on a larger role.
One of the Polish centers recently processed 28,000 refugees in one day, Sturgill said.
Sturgill, who works as a financial adviser at Edward Jones, has also been coordinating donations from friends and coworkers to help pay for hotel rooms and other necessities the refugees need. There are others like him in Poland, many of them European, who have driven their personal cars east to help transport people.
“It reminds you of Dunkirk,” he said, referring to the English civilians who transported British soldiers stranded in France during World War II across the English Channel in fishing boats and leisure craft. “They’re coming with their little cars, they’re trying to rescue as many people as they can.”
While speaking with the Statesman on Tuesday, a member of Sturgill’s group was transporting a pregnant woman with four children from the border to Krakow.
Sturgill said a seventh person would join his team Wednesday, and bring another vehicle.
In 2014, Sturgill started a charity, Type of Wood, after traveling to the Philippines after a typhoon that flattened portions of the country and killed thousands. The charity is now collecting donations for the crisis in Ukraine.
Working at the Polish border, Sturgill said he is about 18 miles from an area that was recently bombed by the Russian military. He added that the number of refugees flowing across the border appears to slow during Russian bombing raids, when “everybody hunkers down.”
Sturgill is scheduled to return to Idaho on Sunday, but may decide to prolong his stay.
“You just don’t fathom, from even watching the news, or reading the newspaper, you just don’t fathom it,” Sturgill said. “You see thousands of women and children — cold, tired, scared — coming in who have been running and fleeing for their safety.”
Justwan said Russian forces have progressed more slowly than they likely suspected, facing stiff resistance from the Ukrainians. How much worse the refugee crisis gets will depend on how “much more brutal” the war gets if Russia shifts its military strategy, he said.
“There are a lot of officials worrying that if Russia further escalates the war, this might motivate (many) more people to leave the country,” he said.
This story was originally published March 17, 2022 at 12:25 PM.
