2014 turned the lives of Ukrainians upside down.
Many left everything behind and fled, while others stayed to fight to the end. After the annexation of Crimea and the occupation of Donetsk and Luhansk, the front line seemed frozen. The country kept on living, but as if it had lost a large and inseparable part of itself. The hardest wound was the split between people. Western regions and our eastern home started looking at each other with suspicion. Those who lived far from the front line often didn’t understand what was happening, and while the disaster didn’t touch them personally, many remained indifferent. It felt as if we were living in different worlds: some experienced the war every single day, while others treated it as distant news.
Years dragged on in this uneasy balance. In the age of social media, fake news became routine, so many ignored the occasional warnings about a possible new invasion. But those who lived near the border felt danger every day. For them the war was never just an image on a screen – air-raid sirens and shelling were part of a reality that could not be ignored.
On February 5, 2022 I turned fifteen. That evening, on the way home from a small birthday celebration, I heard the distant rumble of Grad rockets for the first time in a long while. I didn’t think much of it, but something inside me tightened.
On February 22, 2022 our family left Mariupol by chance, taking only a few things, just to visit my sister in Odesa. Who could have known that this carefree trip would be the last time I saw my home – it felt like a short visit, not a farewell. I insisted that my grandmother come with us, and that decision saved her life.
On February 24, 2022 Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, calling it a “special military operation” to avoid the word war. But it was a real war – a war aimed at the destruction of Ukrainians. No one knew what would happen next or how quickly Russian troops would advance.
The news screamed: “Kyiv will fall in three days.” Columns of military vehicles poured into Ukraine from every direction; the offensive seemed swift and merciless. Every hour brought new, frightening scenarios, and it felt like the end – the largest country in the world had attacked us again. No one knew where it would stop.
In Mariupol the phone network lasted only a few more days. By the end of February – around the 28th or 29th – it went silent. I lost contact with everyone who stayed in the city: relatives, friends, neighbors.
For many this was a new and shocking reality, but I had already lived through Mariupol in 2014 and knew well how cruel Russia could be. That’s why the fear for those trapped inside was almost unbearable: every hour of silence felt like an eternity.
As Russian troops pushed forward, it became clear that we had to save our lives.
My family decided to run as far from the war as possible. February was ending. The weather was still cold, and we had only the clothes we wore when leaving Mariupol. We crossed into Poland, where we hid from the news for a short time and tried to catch our breath, then moved on to Austria. We had almost no money, no home, no warm clothes, and no way to reach the relatives who had remained in Mariupol.
Searching for help online, we found an organization that was already helping Ukrainians even before its website officially launched.
These people found housing for us, provided clothes and shoes, helped us buy phones and gave us funds for our first essential expenses. Without their support we simply would not have survived. Today this project operates fully and continues to help Ukrainians, and it is on this site that I am now sharing my story – with endless gratitude to those who extended a hand in the darkest moment.
In Austria we seemed to hang somewhere between the past and the future. The country gave us safety and quiet, but every day felt temporary, like living in transit with our lives packed in suitcases. Meanwhile, Mariupol was being wiped off the map. Street fighting raged, houses burned, people spent weeks without water, electricity, or heat. Phones remained silent. We had no idea who among our relatives and friends was still alive, and the long silence tore at the heart.
At the same time Russia kept advancing across Ukraine. Its troops occupied the Kherson region, part of Zaporizhzhia, and approached the outskirts of Kyiv. Residential neighborhoods, hospitals, and schools came under relentless shelling. Civilians were killed in their own homes; entire cities were reduced to rubble. It became obvious that this was not merely a war for territory – it was an attempt to break a nation, erase cities, and deprive people of a future.
But Ukraine did not break. By the end of March Ukrainians stood together as never before. The Russian assault on Kyiv, Chernihiv, and Sumy collapsed, and the enemy army retreated from the capital and the northern regions. By the summer of 2022 it was clear: the plan to capture the whole country had failed. Russia still held occupied territories in Donetsk and Luhansk and parts of the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions, but the lightning strike had been stopped.
Mariupol, however, remained completely cut off until mid-May. Only then did rare messages from relatives and friends begin to break through. To send them, people climbed onto rooftops or damaged cell towers, desperate to signal that they were alive. Each message was like a scream from hell. Inside were horrifying details: Russian soldiers bursting into basements, executing men, raping women. Corpses lay on the streets for weeks, often impossible to bury. People drank water drained from heating pipes or melted snow just to survive. Those who tried to escape were forced through “filtration camps”- humiliating interrogations, torture, confiscation of documents, and the deportation of children deep into Russia. Thousands were killed, thousands more were taken away, and entire families disappeared without a trace.
Some eventually managed to get a signal out and tell what they had endured; others never wrote again. I lost many friends and still don’t know the fate of some neighbors and classmates. Mariupol ceased to be just a city – it became a symbol of pain and crimes that cannot be forgotten.
Austria helped us survive the most dangerous months, giving shelter and calm. But the longer we stayed, the more it felt like only a temporary refuge. When it became clear that Kyiv had held and the front line had shifted east and south, we decided to return to Ukraine – to Odesa, where my father was living.
The summer of 2022 passed under the wail of air-raid sirens. Missiles struck Odesa, Mykolaiv, Kharkiv, and other cities, hitting infrastructure and residential areas. Russia held occupied regions in the east and south, continued shelling, destroyed the power grid, and imposed an occupation regime on seized territories. Every day brought new reports of filtration camps, child deportations, torture, and executions.
By August it was becoming more dangerous and uncertain. I had almost no financial means, but I received an opportunity to study in the United Kingdom – the only chance to preserve a future and to have a voice to tell the world the truth about the war. The organization uacare.org helped with the financial part, providing funds for plane tickets and initial expenses; without their support, leaving would have been impossible.
In August 2022 I left Ukraine for the United Kingdom to study. Because I was still under eighteen, I traveled with my mother. At the airport we were met by an English host family who took us into their home for the first months. I entered a local school without knowing any English and had to start from zero every single day. Life in a new country was already hard – but the language barrier made it twice as heavy.
Very quickly I ran into cruelty.
Some students openly mocked Ukraine and the war. They laughed about the invasion, asking if my family was still alive – their tone making it clear they were really asking whether my relatives had “died yet.” A few even said they hoped a missile would tear my family apart. I was scared and hurt. I asked teachers for help, but they only pretended to act, and the bullying continued.
When I finally stopped keeping silent and tried to defend myself, the problems only grew. Groups of students followed me through the school, looking for a chance to start a fight. Several times it almost happened, and teachers did nothing. Sometimes it felt as if they were against me rather than protecting me.
One day, after another conflict, the year tutor – the staff member responsible for our age group and discipline – pulled me out of class in the middle of a lesson. He shouted at me all the way to his office, then closed the door and aggressively accused me of causing every problem in the school. He said I was lying and manipulating. Because of fear, the language barrier, and sheer exhaustion, I couldn’t defend myself. I just stood there and cried.
The family we lived with didn’t believe me either. The tutor called them and told his version of events, making it sound as if I was to blame for everything.
In class, students threw paper at me right in front of teachers. When I finally snapped and threw a piece back, the teacher yelled only at me and sent me to the headteacher. I was repeatedly given after-school detentions, often without being told in advance, so the time kept being extended for hours. It was humiliating and unfair.
Despite all this, I wasn’t completely alone. I found a small circle of support: two Muslim sisters who were also bullied, and a quiet boy who, like us, stood apart. We stayed close to each other, shared translations of words, and sat together during breaks just to feel a little safer.
I remember that period with dread. But even there a few good teachers offered moral support and let me hide in their classrooms when things became unbearable. Their kindness and those few friends helped me survive and kept me from breaking completely. While I was struggling to endure school, Ukraine kept fighting. News from home arrived every day and cut deep. In the autumn of 2022 Russia began massive attacks on the power grid: whole cities were left without light, heat, or water for weeks. In November Ukraine liberated Kherson, but shelling never stopped. In the spring of 2023 Russian forces destroyed the Kakhovka dam on the Dnipro River – dozens of villages were flooded, thousands of people lost their homes, drinking water, and everything they had. On the occupied territories filtration camps, torture, and child deportations continued. Each day made the war feel endless and even more brutal.
I read these updates after school, sitting in a foreign house, and felt as if I were living in two worlds at once. Outside was peaceful England, with green lawns and strict school rules. Inside was constant fear for my family, anger at my own helplessness, and guilt that I was safe while people at home were dying.
By the end of the school year I returned to Ukraine. I did not come back with joy, but drained and shaken after everything I had endured in England and everything my country had suffered while I was away. Ukraine greeted me with air-raid sirens, scars of destruction, and the same pain that had lived inside me all along, no matter where I was.n that had lived inside me all along, no matter where I was.