Olena lived in the occupation for 8 months with her two grandchildren and her elderly mother. She recalls that time with a sad smile: the occupiers settled in the houses of the locals, getting drunk and looting everything they saw – from cars, agricultural machinery and grain to personal belongings, phones and microwaves, they even took her granddaughter’s tablet from her hands. In between drinking and looting, the occupiers shelled the village to intimidate the locals, dumped the bodies of their own comrades into a pit and held a so-called referendum at gunpoint.

Now Olena lives in the village of Kotsiubynske in the Kyiv region. She has found solace in the volunteer association Vyshyvanka dlia tanka, where she makes camouflage nets together with other displaced women and helps the frontline.