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Stepan, a cocktail and vibes.
@loveyoustepan/InstagramStepan is pure vibes. He's a 13-year-old tabby cat with more than a million followers on TikTok who relish videos of him cooly leaning against a counter with a drink, while colored lights dance on the wall, looking like his night out at the club is winding down.
Stepan is also Ukrainian, which means his life and the life of his favorite human, who goes by Anna on the app, have been utterly upended since the Russian invasion of Ukraine began Feb. 24. While days before the war started he was posing for his Instagram page with a large cheese pizza and the TV remote, he disappeared for two weeks (prompting concerned comments), and now has resurfaced on Instagram with a post detailing he and his owner's escape to safety in France.
"We realized that the war had come to our house," a Wednesday post reads.
@annaolala @valentino #ValentinoGaravani♬ оригинальный звук - user548075332261
His latest photos show him underground hiding from shells; snuggled in his owner's light blue, puffy jacket; tucked in his carrier; and looking wide-eyed, as cats often are, out the window of the train that took them from Lviv, after 20 hours, to the Polish border. Anna didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.
The Kyiv Independent reported in December that Stepan found fame after Britney Spears reposted one of his videos, and that his owner originally adopted him off the street as a kitten. He even did a post in November with a $2,800 Valentino purse.
This week, a post outlined the kind of harrowing escape that's become all-too familiar when reporters talk to Ukrainians on the news.
Like so many, Anna wrote that they woke up on Feb. 24 to shelling. They spent two days in a basement in Kharkiv where they lived, and went a whole week without power. Initially, their apartment escaped damage, but that changed when a shell hit their neighbor's balcony, according to Stepan's Instagram story. They waited nine hours at the border to get out of Ukraine.
Anna is just one of more than 3 million refugees streaming out of Ukraine in the last few weeks. It's the largest influx of displaced people since World War II and neighboring countries like Poland are struggling to keep up with what's mainly been a sea of women and children escaping war, as men stay back to fight.
@annaolala