A life in Europe? Ukrainian refugees weigh alternatives to going home.
Myron Balyuk arrived in Germany without his ice skates.
In the rush to flee Russian bombs, the teenager left Ukraine with only his mother and their cats, leaving his father and a budding competitive skating career behind. They eventually landed in the small German town of Bad Wildungen, which they found as slow-paced as their native Kharkiv was speedy.
“Something that’s done in Kharkiv with a phone call takes two months here,” says Olga Balyuk of her new life in Germany. Learning the language has been a struggle. But a German hockey player impressed with Myron’s talent gave him a pair of skates.
Ms. Balyuk badly misses her husband, who, like all adult males, is not allowed to leave Ukraine. “I don’t want to plan a future alone,” she says, “but every day I wake up, I see on my phone that a rocket hit a restaurant or a house in Kharkiv. My
