I was very worried and constantly thought about my children and their future; what did they do wrong? Why do they have to experience such a horrible thing.

It was a normal working day and I woke up at 6 in the morning, my children were still sleeping. I have started to make my coffee when the phone rang, it was my husband who was very worried and said: “-Don’t let the children go to school, the war has started!”. At first I didn’t understand what he meant, I couldn’t believe it was true. Later after I had recovered, I opened the internet and saw that Kyiv was bombed.

I started calling relatives and friends. Everyone was worried and didn’t know what to do. We lived in western Ukraine, Khmelnytskyi region. After a few days the war reached us. We saw military planes flying so low that our hearts stopped in our chests with fear. We heard explosions and saw robots. I have two children, son Sashko 15 years old and daughter Sofia 7 years old. I was very worried and constantly thought about my children and their future; what did they do wrong? Why do they have to experience such a horrible thing.

After 9 days I decided to leave Ukraine together with the children. We went to Poland. Later, volunteers took us to Sweden. We lived in an area called Älandsbro which belongs to Härnösand municipality. We have now been in Sweden for 5 months. My son has always wanted to go back home, we miss our friends and relatives very much. In Ukraine we left our life and our love.

In mid-August we found out that we have to move to another municipality because Härnösand is overloaded with refugees from Ukraine. After we received the letter about the move, we decided to go home. It was not an easy decision as the war is still going on in our country. But we believe in our army, winning the war and that everything will be fine in the end. We are very grateful for everything that Sweden and its citizens have done for us. It was an unforgettable experience of support and I will always remember it.