For four years now, Oleksandr Radchuk has been searching for his mother, Snizhana. The story of their family, which began in Chernihiv region and continued in Mariupol, was shattered in the spring of 2022:  after Sasha was wounded during shelling, he and his mother ended up at the Illich Steel and Iron Works. When Russian troops surrounded the plant, the family was taken to a filtration camp in the settlement of Bezimenne. It was there that the occupiers forcibly separated the 11-year-old boy from Snizhana – the child was told that his mother would come for him in four days, but instead he was deported to occupied Donetsk. Since then, there has been no news of the woman.

Fortunately, after two months spent arranging documents, his grandmother Liudmyla managed to travel to retrieve her grandson and bring him home. From that moment, years of exhausting searches began: appeals to journalists, volunteers, and international organisations, DNA testing, and trips across Europe and the USA. Today, Sasha, who almost completely lost vision in one eye as a result of his injury, continues to wait for his mother.