Hanna Novikova considers March 22, 2022, to be her family’s second birthday. On that day in Mariupol, her two grandsons and daughter-in-law ran out of their house, which was on fire after a direct hit from a shell. At that time, Hanna was already in Poland and did not know whether her grandchildren were alive.

Hanna Novikova met the beginning of the full-scale invasion in Mariupol with her six-year-old daughter, elderly father, aunt and uncle. Their street was shelled from the first days of the war. On February 26, Hanna had to send her daughter to another part of the city and stay with her father, who was bedridden. On March 2, the Ukrainian military asked Hanna to get out at any cost. Under heavy shelling, she took her daughter and left the city... Once she was safe, for two more months Hanna searched for friends and relatives in Mariupol, helping to organize their departure in every possible way. And every day she waited for news from her grandchildren...