At the beginning of the full-scale invasion, Zhanna had not left her apartment for almost five years – she was bedridden due to a spinal injury. Her daughter’s family helped her with household chores. Zhanna couldn’t even go down to the basement during the russian massive missile attacks, so she blessed her daughter when she had the first opportunity to leave, and stayed in Mariupol.

After a shell hit her house, Zhanna made a vow to God that if she could walk again, she would help people. She started intensive training. A month later, she went outside for the first time! Then she went to fetch water, and then she started looking for old and frail people in the city to help them, as she had promised.

“I didn’t do anything special,” she says, embarrassed. – “Everyone in Mariupol did that. But the war taught me to appreciate every moment of life. I survived, I was able to leave and come back to Ukraine because only here I can breathe to the fullest.”