‘I was staying inside a dugout shelter and was afraid to have premature delivery’

Our daughter Nastenka was born in Svatove. She is eight months old. We left Popasna when she was still in her mother’s tummy.

At least there are no hostilities here in Svatove, thank God. We hope that the war will not come here, God forbid. We are in a needy situation. We would need good quality drinking water because local water has a smell of rotten eggs. There is no water supply line here, there is just a hand pump water well. I think this water comes from the rivers. We get water outdoors if we need it for cooking some food or for washing. We pump water and start cooking. And water for the baby, for little Nastya, is different. We buy it.

It was very scary there. Many people were killed there, our very good friend, Tolik Titskyi, among them. He went to the store just when the shelling began. A shell fragment hit him in the back and went through the stomach. He was a good, kind person. He would always support others at any moment...

My husband and I were going from the store. There was a heavy fighting at the time. People were just standing at the bus stop, and a taxi was parked close by. If the minibus hadn’t left in time, all the people in the minibus would have suffered. And those people who remained waiting at the bus stop, they came under shellfire. One woman and one man had their heads torn off.

There was continuous shelling from Grad rocket launchers, day and night. Grads were shelling around the clock from Pervomaika, Stakhanov, from that side. My husband and our neighbours made a dugout shelter there, and we stayed and slept there. We did not get out of there for 10 days. I was very worried, very much worried not to have premature delivery. And when we came here, we felt calmer and quieter, but the emotional condition was shaken, the nervous system is at the limit.

My kids love milk and it was good when we had our own cow. And now we buy milk. Its price is UAH 25 for one can of milk. They like porridge. Vanya loves to drink milk so much that he would probably drink it day and night. He grew up on milk and he cannot live without it. We eat meat very rarely. We can buy some chicken legs, one or two, to cook borshch [red soup], so that there is some fat. For borshch to be tastier for the kids.