– I had to leave everything – VG

Norwegian John Gunnar Haugens, 47, was traveling with a Ukrainian trailer driver out of Ukraine.

– I had to leave everything. The assets, the apartment and the car, Haugenes tells VG.

He says his partner has returned to Ukraine.

– She has two parents and two sisters that she will never leave. She is the eldest of the siblings. The younger sister is only seven years old. She felt it was selfish to leave, nor did she know if her father could be drafted into the war, says the 47-year-old from Tvedstrand.

Haugenes was running his computer company in Norway when he went to Ukraine in 2016 to set up an IT department in the capital, Kiev.

The company was later sold, and last year he made a living by renting Ukrainian labor to Norwegian employers.

Fearful of war, Haugenes and his extended family went to a farm in a village 160 kilometers west of the capital a few weeks ago, where the surviving father comes.

But on Wednesday of this week, the couple returned to the apartment in Kiev. The commuter had time to drive on Thursday, and he didn’t let the chance of getting a driver’s license go away, Haugenes says.

– Wolves have been yelled at by Americans for a long time now, so we thought it was okay to go. Nobody was well prepared for Kiev to burn. There is a lot of anger, crying and despair now.

The 47-year-old says he woke up Thursday morning to the sound of bombs exploding in the capital.

– We saw that the bombs were falling and the buildings were on fire. It was shocking, he says.

Haugenes says his car disappeared when he woke up from a bomb explosion.

– It turned out that I had parked incorrectly the day before, and the car had been towed away. I just got out of town with a truck. My car was received, but it is impossible to get fuel now.

On Friday morning, Haugenes took a walk with a truck driver who was going to Budapest.

– He is an acquaintance of my companion’s father.

When VG spoke to Haugenes at 4pm on Friday, the train made its way to the final station in Mukachev, about 20 km from the Hungarian border.

– Now I’m trying to catch a taxi that can take me to the border. He says I don’t know what happens from there.

VG also spoke with Haugenes earlier today. Then he said it was calm.

Traffic flows relatively well. We see some military vehicles, but not many.

Haugenes says Ukraine now has an urgent need for help.

Ukraine stands alone in a war against a madman. What is happening is incredibly sad, but Norway can help find work for all those who are now forced to flee, he says.

On February 16, Norwegian Erik Helgesblas, 46, boarded the plane from Oslo to Kiev to meet with his wife Nadia and stepson Oleksig, 13, who live outside the capital.

Yesterday they all went from Kiev to a village where they had a cabin, eight cars south of Kiev. The trip took seven and a half hours, and the normal driving time is barely two hours.

– We woke up at 6 am to the first missile that hit the airport. We soon found out that being in the village was much safer than in Kiev. There were some arms and legs, says Helgesplass, but we got out unharmed.

VG gave an interview to Helgesplass when he left Norway a week and a half ago.

– It’s a very strange feeling, a sad feeling to come down without knowing when I’ll be back. Now the focus is on others from me, Helges Plus told VG before he got on the plane to Kiev.

He says he is not sure if the apartment in Kiev is intact.

A Russian plane that was shot down last night landed in our neighborhood. I don’t know how the house went.

Helgesplass says he will spend the next few days helping people outside Ukraine.

Already on Saturday, he put the group behind the wheel of his old truck, heading for Slovakia. The trip usually takes eight hours one way.

– I am now making upholstery in the car, so that there is room for as many as possible. Today we will have a Norwegian-Ukrainian couple with a child, a couple I don’t know yet – and a pregnant woman and her husband. Perhaps there will be another Norwegian-Ukrainian couple. It will be very crowded, Helgesplass says.

When he returns from Slovakia, the plan is to get Nadia and her stepson out of the country.

– It will be interesting to see how it goes. We have to count on short periods of time to bypass military columns, so it’s hard to predict how things will go.

Helgesplass describes what is happening in Ukraine as surreal.

– I am a former paramedic, and I was a volunteer for the Red Cross. So I saw a lot. I never thought that Ukrainians would quickly flee to their country, or that I would flee to a foreign country. But I feel I should try to make the most of it, and help others who need it.