Prior to the outbreak of the war on February 24, 2022, Yulia, Polina, her mother Anna and her father Andriy lived in the Donetsk Oblast near the coast of the Sea of Azov. Their father was a soldier, who, from the onset of the war, insisted that the family move west to Zaporizhzhya as he began preparing to defend Mariupol at Azovstal.
In early May, the family found out their beloved father and husband had been killed by enemy fire.
Following advice from their uncle, Anna took Yulia and Polina to live with friends in the Ternopil region in the west of Ukraine as it, too, had become too dangerous to remain in Zaporizhzhya. Today, the family remains in the safer western regions and dreams of peace and comfort to one day grace their invincible home country.
