’The beginning of the war was the most terrible day. I will probably never forget it. On the morning of February 24, I woke up to an explosion on our balcony,’ says Marharyta, a resident of Kakhovka. ’I immediately ran to work because I was a nurse, and I knew I had to prepare everything I needed - get water, prepare medicines. When I came home from work, there were very big battles going on near Nova Kakhovka.

We thought that now, in three days, a week, a month, it would all be over. We were hoping for that, and we weren't going anywhere. We were sitting in our friends' basement for a whole week, going through these moments together. All the shops were closed, there was no bread anywhere.

In the first week, I was called at night when seven people were brought in wounded. People were just shot. A woman was on her way to pick up her son from Kherson. They were shot from a Russian plane’.