One evening, Alesia and her daughter, Viktoriia, went out for a short walk. Suddenly, two powerful explosions rang out. Olesia instinctively shielded her daughter with her own body. Vika suffered a severe shrapnel injury to her left arm, along with a fracture and dislocation. Due to continuous shelling, the family could not get to hospital straight away. It was only in the early hours of the morning that the girl was brought to Mykolaiv Regional Hospital, where she underwent an operation that lasted around six hours. The doctors operated as shelling continued outside the window. 

This was followed by a lengthy recovery and another operation. It was not possible to fully restore the mobility of her arm. Viktoriia says she has learned to live with an arm that does not function fully.  

Today, Viktoriia dreams of things that seemed ordinary before the war: going to school, getting into university, walking around the city without air raid alerts, and living for at least one day “just a normal life”. 

For Alesia, it is important that the stories of Ukrainian children are heard around the world and that the memory of what they have endured during the war does not fade with time.