On the morning of February 24, Nataliia and her youngest son left Mariupol in a hurry. A friend of the family, who happened to be in the city, offered to take them to Dnipro. "I had 20 minutes to get ready," the woman recalls. Her husband, a soldier, had already gone to duty to defend the city. Having left for Dnipro, then to Vinnytsia, and from there to Lviv, Nataliia and her son found shelter thanks to the help of strangers.

There was less and less communication with her husband and the last time she heard his voice was in May 2022, when he was taken prisoner. Since then, Nataliia learns about her husband only from the stories of discharged soldiers who saw him in russian torture camps. Her sources of strength are love for children and great responsibility. "Now I'm both mom and dad," she says, and lives only with the great hope of meeting her husband.

P.S. At the time of recording the interview, Nataliia's husband was still in captivity, but on October 18, 2024, he was finally returned home.