I'm a single mother. I bring up two children, their fathers abandoned them. We just manage to pull through. I don't complain much. Thank God, my son is in Grade 3 now. The older child has a psychological trauma. I hope we can cure it.

When we went to school and passed doctors, we were told, "You have a hyperactive child, you need to drink tablets." We were taking pills, and then this started happening… It was very scary.  And the child simply went into shell. 

There was a lot going on here. Constant whistling sounds in our village. It was in 2014. And this was just the beginning. When I gave birth to my youngest child, I ran away from Donetsk. I said, "Please, discharge him, because I can't stay here any more. I have to go home, I have an older son there."

It was dreadful. I have a heart condition. Many old and young people could not stand the attacks – their hearts stopped. It was very scary. Never mind, though, our generation is strong. We endured it all bravely.

We hid a couple of times in the basement of our parents's home. And if mother did not insist, we would stay in the house. I hugged the children. The most important thing for iis to keep the children safe. Children are my only light, life. I do not know what I would do if I did not have them. They are my joy.

When a projectile flies over the house, I can't express the way you feel with words.  It was scary, even just running. I would not it on my worst enemy to ever survive something like this.

In 2015 or 2016, our house constantly under fire. It happened at night. I won't ever forget this moment.  When the attack happened during the day, we were more comfortable with it… And I'll never forget that night, when the shelling began and everything was burning red. And I can't say that a shell hit somewhere close. No, they passed by. My parents had some shrapnel, but nothing was broken. To pull it all together, there were no losses. 

My grandmother experienced this in the 1940s. She was a child. She said, "Lena, I would not like to live this life like this." We are waiting for this to end. And live the way we used to live. I wish we would be able to raise our children so that they would be able to get proper education and have someone to bring them a glass of water in old age.

I have already run out of my dreams — I am not at that age any more. Of course, I would like to finish my studies, I would like a lot of things. I graduated from the Construction Industrial and Pedagogical Technical School in Kharkiv, but I didn't finish it, I didn't have enough time. The city was quite expensive for me, I lived on a scholarship, so it was very difficult.

It all comes down to money, because we need to buy firewood and food. 100-200 UAH at the store won't buy much. A hundred is the least amount. This is so, sugar, some pasta, bread… If there are any sausages, because the children want them, then you need 200 UAH a day. 

I am very grateful to Rinat Akhmetov. As soon as he started providing humanitarian aid, I was among the the first ones who received it. He supported us when things were rough. This year we got a travel permit. My son went to the camp. He even started to talk better. We hope that everything will be fine. That it will stop soon.