“The house was not there anymore, just like the basement where my parents here hiding… No sooner had I started digging than the shelling resumed…”

For Roman, that war started back in 2014, just like for many of his fellow townsmen. He lived and worked in Mariupol. Being the senior technician in charge of the maintenance of high-voltage power lines with one of DTEK Energy’s companies, he used to go to dangerous sites all those years. He had to work to restore the power supply amid shelling and dangers posed by mines in the areas he had to visit.

Roman and his colleagues were doing everything to repair the power grid in Mariupol in February 2022 while they still could. However, the power facilities were shelled again once they were restored. At the beginning of March, it became clear that all their efforts were in vain. He had to rescue his family. Roman has two daughters, aged 6 and 13.

On 1 March, all the windows in his apartment were shattered after the shelling. They moved in with his mother-in-law, who lived in a one-family house with a basement. Half of that house was destroyed on the night of March 7 to 8. Roman and his family moved in with his sister. Roman’s in-laws, mother, and grandmother decided to stay. A few days later, the house was leveled to the ground by a bomb. Roman’s relatives were trapped under the debris, and they survived by a miracle.

On March 16, Roman and his family managed to get to Manhush first, and then to Zaporizhzhia and to a village in Cherkasy Oblast after that. Soon thereafter, Roman returned to work. He has been restoring power lines in Kyiv Oblast since then.