Yana Soroka and her mother Liubov, younger brother and father were in their native village in Mykolaiv Region when the full-scale war began. They found themselves under occupation in the very first days. Columns of enemy military vehicles rolled through the village, while the family spent weeks sheltering from shelling in the cellar. The electricity, water and gas supplies were cut off, and their food supplies were rapidly running out. Liubov recalls sharing a single sweet between the two children. For nine-year-old Yana, that moment was when she realised that  something truly terrifying was happening. 

One day, on their way to their grandmother’s, the family came under cluster-munition fire. The shock left the girl unable to speak for some time. It was then that her parents finally decided to get the children to safety. Several attempts to leave the occupied territory proved futile: russian soldiers turned cars back at checkpoints. Eventually, the family took the risk of driving past mined areas where several vehicles had already been blown up. 

Yana’s father remained in the occupied territory because of his position. Later, Liubov received a phone call informing her that her husband had been captured by the occupying forces and taken towards Kherson Region in an armoured personnel carrier. They kept him with a bag over his head and held a pistol to his temple. After the interrogations, however, they released him. It took him two days to reach his family, travelling through occupied villages.