‘I was crying on the way here’: Ukraine refugee recounts her ordeal fleeing Kyiv at JFK

A Ukrainian woman who fled Kyiv to stay with family in New York detailed her “devastating” escape from her homeland to The Post after arriving safely at Kennedy Airport Friday evening.

Marina Stepaniuk, 37, embraced her cousin’s husband Dmytro Shuba, 36, as he picked her up at the airport and presented her with purple and white carnations.

Stepaniuk, an event planner in Ukraine’s capital, said she knew she “should flee the city” when Russian airstrikes began on Feb. 24.

“I saw Russian planes over the Ukrainian sky – the explosions, the sounds, [buildings] were shaking from the vibrations,” Stepaniuk said in Ukrainian, as Shuba translated.

The refugee said she hid with friends in a suburban basement for a few days before getting in her car and heading west. She arrived in Novohrad-Volyns’kyi, Ukraine on Feb. 28 and made it to Poland the next day.

“Across the border it took 13 hours. Everybody, refugees, were trying to get out of Ukraine,” Stepaniuk said.

She was one of several people from Ukraine on the 9-hour flight from Warsaw, Poland, who landed at JFK Friday.

Her parents, however, stayed behind in Novohrad.

“They don’t want to leave because it’s their land, they don’t want to flee,” Stepaniuk said.

“It’s very concerning. I was crying on the way here,” she said of leaving her family behind. “It’s a devastating thing that’s happening.”

Get the latest updates in the Russia-Ukraine conflict with The Post’s live coverage.

Stepaniuk arrived in the Big Apple with only two suitcases and a travel visa.

Shuba, who lives in Dobbs Ferry and works as a maintenance supervisor, said of his wife’s cousin: “she’s part of our family and she can stay for as long as she needs.”

He would have returned to his native Kyiv to take up arms against Russia, he said, were it not for his obligation to his 5-year-old daughter and infant son in the US.

“I have two kids. That’s the only thing holding me back. Otherwise I’d be there,” Shuba said, wearing a sticker of the blue and yellow colors of Ukraine’s flag on his arm.

Shuba, who said he immigrated to the US 21 years ago, was anguished that his grandfather and uncle could not be reached back home.

“It just goes to nowhere,” he said about calling his 84-year-old grandfather.

“It’s barbaric. You don’t do this stuff in the 21st century,” Shuba continued, referring to Russia’s invasion.

“I think he’s the antichrist,” he said of Russian President Vladimir Putin. “The worst thing that can happen to a country is when a KGB leader takes over.”

His fleeing relative said she was sad to be forced to leave her “good life” planning parties in Kyiv — but was hopeful that Ukraine could fend off the Russian invasion.

“Everybody in Ukraine believes we will win the war and go back to peace. That’s what we want,” Stepaniuk said.

One million refugees have already fled Ukraine since the start of Moscow’s war, and millions more are on their heels, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.

The US announced Thursday that Ukraine citizens who had been in the US before March 1 would be allowed to stay for 18 months. That humanitarian relief would not apply to Stepaniuk.

When asked if she had a message for Putin, Stepaniuk did not mince words.

“Go f–k yourself,” she said, laughing.