A Charlotte Man Fleeing Ukraine’s Embattled Capital Finally Crossing The Border Into Poland

CHARLOTTE, NC. —  Matt Thacker is coming to grips with the fact that the life he built with his wife in Ukraine will never be the same.

“I just pulled my house keys out of my jacket and it just struck me that these might just be useless things now. It’s something so odd, to have something that’s important to you possibly be rendered useless and if anything become a symbol of what you’ve lost,” Thacker says.

The Charlotte native and UNC Charlotte graduate is now at an Air b&b in Poland. WCCB first talked to Thacker on Friday while he and his wife were fleeing their home in Kyiv, taking with them only what they could fit in a suitcase.

“All the sort of ways out of the city are pretty blocked. We’re talking days wait in line.”

Thacker says they got to Poland through the Israeli Consulate and were able to bypass most of the wait. As he and his wife were getting on the bus to safety, a friend messaged him saying French intelligence suspected the humanitarian corridor between Lviv and Poland would be bombed. The route they were taking.

“Literally as we are boarding the bus I get that message and then and then air raid siren started. So I was extremely panicked but I knew that this was sort of a do or die situation I guess and it was my way out.”
They had a safe trip, but the sights they saw are heartbreaking.

“Some of them are sort of upsetting stuff is the kids. There’s a lot of kids just saying mom I wanna go home, I want to go home, where is dad?”