Fleeing their homeland was terrible: Olha and her three children lived in Kherson, in southern Ukraine. After the full invasion by Russia more than four years ago, the mother decided to flee to the western part of Ukraine. “In the car we drove past shot-up tanks, burnt-out cars and corpses,” says the mother. The Russians stopped them several times at checkpoints and threatened them with an “investigation in the basement,” i.e. torture. “My children were so scared,” says Olha, a singer. Olha and her children managed to escape and now live near the small community of Mykolaiv, near the Polish border. Her husband, a Ukrainian soldier, died this year from war wounds. “We’re getting by,” says Olha with a sad look.
