The first thing Olena Khrolenko thought of when she heard about the war: We need to save food, because there may be interruptions in the supply of bread. Her husband agreed with her. The couple sent their daughter and grandchildren to evacuate, but they did not leave because Olena’s husband serves in the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Although he insisted that Olena evacuate, she refused: “In 2014, you went to war by yourself, and in 2022, I won’t be without you.”

Olena’s son-in-law and son were on duty at a warehouse for the Territorial Defence Forces. The boys asked Olena to feed the defenders. They stopped at the edge of the village in a house belonging to the interviewee’s family. Olena immediately packed a bag of snacks for the soldiers for tea. And then her brother-in-law offered her to cook for the military on a regular basis. “As soon as people found out that I cook for the military, they immediately asked: “What can I bring you?”, Olena recalls. They donated food in bags. They brought a lot of meat, because people were slaughtering boars, knowing that they would be leaving.

Olena admits that sometimes she was overwhelmed by the pain of everything that was happening, but she did not stop her volunteer shift at the stove: “You sit down and cry... There are times when you feel sorry for everything. But my husband would touch me and say: “You’re doing a good job!”. And that’s it!”