“We were a happy family, expecting our second child, but we had to change everything”

On February 24, 2022, at 5 in the morning, we woke up to loud explosions outside our house. The war had begun! I was very worried and scared. Our lives were turned upside down in a small moment. We were a happy family, expecting our second child, but we had to change everything. My husband is in the military and had to leave at once and the morning of February 24th was the last time I saw him before I left Ukraine.

Me and my daughter Angelina packed our bags and together with our pets we went to my mother who lives in the center of Kyiv. For a week we were there, constantly running back and forth to the shelter. People were panicking, several shops were closed and it was difficult to buy food. I decided to leave Ukraine. We spent a day at a train station waiting for a train to Ivano-Frankivsk. We went down the aisle and sat on our bags because there were far too many people trying to escape. Then we went to Chernivtsi and from there acquaintances took us to the Romanian border.

We stayed in Romania for three days and then the volunteers helped us to Sweden. The Swedish Migration Agency placed us at a campsite in Timrå and then in an apartment in Härnösand. In Härnösand in the summer of 2022, our long-awaited son was born. After the municipality took over responsibility for us, we got a second place to live in and that’s where we live right now.

We long so much to go home to Ukraine. Until then, we try to live our lives as best we can. My daughter goes to school and I take care of the son and knit stuffed animals, which I also sell to others. In this way, I try to help my mother who remains in Kyiv and my husband who is at the front. He still hasn’t met his son. But I am confident that he will and that we will all meet in our homeland, when we are finally free from the enemy that attacked us so treacherously on February 24, 2022.

Update 2023-04-16:

It is with great sadness in my heart that I want to inform you that Veronika’s husband, Sergeant of the Territorial Defense Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Yuriy Andriovych Moroz (09.09.1975 – 04.16.2023) came under artillery fire and died of wounds near Soledar.