Even before the war, Iryna's military acquaintance told her: "The main thing is that the child never sees this." And when the woman saw the glow, heard the explosions, she just packed up her car, took her daughter, mother, animals, and drove on the Zhytomyr highway. Her husband stayed to protect the house that the couple had recently built in Mykolaivka. But when the shelling began, Iryna managed to persuade her husband and father to leave the village.

For six months, she lived in Britain, where she was sheltered by completely strangers. Iryna was engaged in volunteering, sent humanitarian aid from Britain to Ukraine. And then she came back and continued volunteering at home.