In March 2022, seven-year-old Sofiika Klymenko kept her own wartime diary in the besieged city of Mariupol: she wrote down when the electricity and heating were cut off, counted the days between her father’s rare visits, and waited for him to return. Her father, artilleryman Yurii Klymenko, was defending the city. 

Sofiika and her mother, Viktoriia, struggled to survive in the smoke-filled, besieged city of Mariupol. They kept warm by open fires in residential courtyards, trembled through the constant shelling, and rationed every drop of water. 

On 16 March, they left. They left a note for her father on the door and set off into the unknown. The journey past the bodies of the dead was so terrifying that her mother told her daughter not to look out of the window, and at each of the 19 enemy checkpoints she sternly repeated: “If they ask about your dad – you don’t have one. You’ve lived with your mum all your life.” 

Ahead of them lay long months of uncertainty: what had happened to Yurii? Then, unexpectedly, a strange message arrived from the besieged Azovstal.  It was a photograph of words written on a piece of cardboard, which the soldiers sent to their families via Starlink. On one such scrap, Yurii promised his wife: if he survived and came home, they would definitely be married in church. 

On 17 May, Yurii sent a video message saying that, under orders, they were surrendering into captivity. Later, through a civilian woman in Donetsk, he managed to send his family a text message: he was in hospital with burns covering 40% of his body.

After being wounded, taken prisoner, and later released in a prisoner exchange, Yurii returned home. Just a few weeks later, the couple fulfilled their long-held dream and were married in church. Soon afterwards, their daughter Solomiia was born, whom the family jokingly call the first child “from Azovstal” – a symbol of new life after surviving hell.