My daughter and I are from Berdyansk. I am a widow since 2014. In my hometown, I was involved inlegal practice - land and agrarian issues of the Zaporizhzhia region. My daughter is a student of Berdyansk Pedagogical University, Faculty of Psychology. She turned 18 years a week ago.

A few days before the war, my daughter asked me: "Let's get out of here, the war is coming soon." I didn't believe it. But we stocked up on medicine and food. My daughter has sick kidneys and was afraid to leave without medicine. It helped us. On February 24, we woke up from explosions. Queues began to form at shops and pharmacies.

We moved from a city flat to a house outside the city. It was cold there, but some safer. My sister's family also came there. All the soldiers from our city went to defend Mariupol. On February 27, Russian army entered Berdyansk. The city council was occupied. The Russian military began to commandeer the streets. My daughter - a 17-year-old girl - did not go outside at all. Russian soldiers took all humanitarian help from Zaporozhye and sold it to people.

At the beginning of March, the Russian army began to destroy Mariupol. Hundreds, hundreds of people started running towards us. They had not even clothes on them. We clothed and fed them.

At the end of April partisans sank the Russian ship "Saratov" in our port. There was a big explosion. We have always had partisans and will always have them. They are well done. But my daughter and I understood that we had to run away. It is dangerous to live under occupation and under the threat of hostilities in the city. We got to know one church community. One of their church ministers was taking people out.

We left our city at the beginning of May. We drove the road of death, I won't call it anything else. Russian checkpoints, at the checkpoints soldiers of different nationalities -Buryats, Mordvins, Chechens, whoever was not there. Some were paid money, somewere given cigarettes. Military operations were taking place near the town Polohy, we had to go on another road. At the last checkpoint near the town of Vasylivka, we were held for several hours.

Then we were released. And we met the Ukrainian military. When we heard the Ukrainian language from the soldiers, we cried. They called the police car. Many of our cars gathered in a convoy and we drove to Zaporizhzhia accompanied by the police. Near Zaporizhzhia, Russian troops fired a rocket at our convoy. The missile was shot down by our anti-aircraft defenses, debris fell on us. We remained intact.

Now we are in Kyiv. We live in a flat that was simply given to us by good people. My daughter is studying online. I did not find a job - the specificity of my profession was in the Zaporizhzhia region. That's why I'm asking people for help.

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