Nika Shurda is a master of sports, multiple champion of Ukraine, and this year she won gold at the European Junior Diving Championship. This victory was after weeks of volunteering in besieged Mariupol under shelling, after a difficult escape from the city and after the terrible news that her father was in captivity.
Dmytro Shurda is a boxing coach and an international judge. He was taken prisoner in Mariupol in mid-March. Then he ended up in a Donetsk hospital with a stroke. The last time Nika heard from her father was on April 29, on her birthday. Since then, Dmytro Shurda was probably kept in pre-trial detention.
Nika believes that her father will endure everything and will return home. And most of all she dreams of telling him about her victory, because Nika dedicated this reward to her father and Ukraine.
