Ukraine enters the novel as the destination in Jan’s offer to Adrián: a place to flee to with the Flemish Legion and keep fighting the Russians. Adrián accepts because he sees the journey as a chance to escape the pursuer who has haunted him since Bilbao, making Ukraine less a safe haven than a new front on which he hopes to outrun his past.

The proposed escape

Jan urges Adrián to go with him to Ukraine, presenting the move as a shared continuation of the war. He promises that they will be all right there and insists that the conflict is not over. His offer gives Adrián an immediate alternative to remaining where he might encounter Navarro again.

A refuge bound to combat

Adrián’s acceptance is driven by flight rather than thoughts of revenge. He believes the invitation is a rare opportunity to escape his fate and the man who has pursued him since he boarded a barge in the port of Bilbao. Yet the destination offers no departure from violence: Jan frames it as a place where they can go on killing Russians. Ukraine thus becomes a refuge only in the relative sense that it may put distance between Adrián and his pursuer.

Narrative significance

The episode presents escape as a choice made under pressure, not a clean break. Adrián accepts Jan’s companionship and the prospect of another battlefield because staying still feels perilous; the war, meanwhile, has already won the first round before he recognizes how unequal the struggle is. Ukraine marks the route he chooses to evade that immediate danger, while the promise that the war is not over makes clear that evasion will carry him into continuing conflict.