“When we were leaving Luhansk, it was a shock. We will never forget it”

It was not just hard. It was very hard. When we were leaving Luhansk, it was a shock. We will never forget it.

The social protection service evacuated us. They evacuated seriously ill children, but we gave money from our own pockets. When at the railway station, shelling began... At that time the train was still running from Luhansk to Odesa. And so, they put us on that train. They managed to bring all those seriously ill and those on wheelchairs. Kids were evacuated first.

They took us to Odesa and some of us were sent to Rybakivka, some to Avtodorozhnik [sanatorium]. There the authorities and emergency service’s officers met us. All of us were distributed quickly to various places.

My husband crashed down in a car accident in winter before I knew I was pregnant. It was a car accident. I gave birth at 31. It was my first kid and I had a difficult delivery. The kid has been ill since birth, head injury, a birth trauma.

She is on constant medical treatment. She is taking medications all the time. For now, we have agreed to have the kid’s leg operated because the more she [the girl] grows, the more her right leg is twisted inside. The sole is almost up and it is very difficult to put her shoes on.

Without Rinat Akhmetov’s aid people in the Donbas would simply starve to death. They were left to fend for themselves. Nobody from the authorities comes to them. And if they come, they just talk to them and that is the end of the whole thing. He is the only one who helps.