'A Russian Tank Destroyed My Home in Ukraine, But There's One Glimmer of Hope'

In 2014, I lived in Ukraine, Donetsk and my family was close by in a small town called Slovyansk. I was 28 years old and working as a property valuer.

That year, I met my future husband, but just a month after dating, Donetsk was occupied by Russian troops. On July 7, 2014, Russian tanks entered Donetsk and I had to flee with only one suitcase and start my life again from scratch.

I was in shock. But at the same time, it was easier for me to leave Donetsk because my family lived in another city, and I had no real estate and no children to look after. Several of my friends who lived in Donetsk thought that the turmoil would only last around two weeks. They thought that they could return to Donetsk because there was an underlying belief that war couldn't possibly occur in the modern world.

But that wasn't the case, many of them did not end up returning to the city as parts of it are still occupied by Russia until this day.

My husband, who was my boyfriend at the time, fled with me to Kyiv and we met my brother at his apartment. He had turned it into a temporary hostel for refugees who had fled different parts of Ukraine. Since the 2014 invasion, I have not gone back to Donetsk.

Although I was dating my future husband at the time, we were supposed to be in the honeymoon phase of our relationship. However, due to the events that had occurred, we were forced to flee together and immediately began living together and sharing our finances. It was cheaper to build a life with somebody else than to live separately, and the invasion that happened in 2014 forced us to speed up our dating process.

Building a new life from scratch

In 2014, my husband and I started our own small business selling lingerie and it became successful. After getting married in 2017, we decided to start a family. Considering that Kyiv was a safe place to live in at the time, we had planned to buy a house. I didn't want my child to grow up moving from home to home and it was our dream to buy our own house, so, we worked very hard and saved the money for a deposit.

In 2017, my husband and I saw the residential compound that was going to house our dream home in Irpin, a small town near Kyiv. Although it was under construction, we knew that we wanted the house to be ours, so we bought it. I became pregnant in 2019 and we had planned to move into the property before the birth of my son but due to construction delays, we moved into our new home on our son's second birthday on March 4, 2021.

It took over a year for us to finish the renovations on our home because we had to save a lot of money and renovate one element at a time. It was a freeing experience because we used our creativity to make everything in it our own. It was very special for me because I was born in the Soviet Union and after leaving my parent's house to study in college, I lived in 18 apartments. It was incredible for me to be able to finally have my own home.

I had always dreamed of living near a forest and my husband and I were impressed by how beautiful the house was. It was perfect for us; it had beautiful ceilings, very big windows, and a large terrace. The town itself was also very cozy and homily.

The attack that changed it all

Then, on February 24, 2022, we had to evacuate our dream home and our lives changed forever. This time, I woke up to the sounds of explosions and I quickly ran to the balcony and saw lots of smoke.

I remember it very clearly; it was approximately 4:50 a.m. and I was confused, I thought that I may have been dreaming. I saw the lights in the windows of my neighbors switching on, and people were waking up one by one. But I couldn't understand why. I checked the local news on the TV and there was nothing regarding the matter. But the Russian mass media has already announced that Putin declared the invasion of Ukraine, so I quickly knew what was happening.

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I was very scared because I was thinking about my son, my employees, and my parents. In 2014, I didn't have much to lose. But during this invasion, I had everything to lose.

I was very lucky because my parents agreed to leave Kyiv as soon as the attack happened. Some of the older generations refused to leave because they were raised there.

On that same day, my husband, my child, and I packed only one suitcase and immediately fled to a friend's house in Slavske, Karpaty, also known as the Carpathian Mountains. Luckily, as soon as the attack happened, they had been able to rent a large house for themselves and for several other families who were seeking refuge. I was relieved when they called us.

Driving to Karpaty usually takes around seven hours by car, but this time, it was a 24-hour drive. There was lots of traffic and people were abandoning their cars on the road and fleeing. There was also a petrol shortage; we had to queue for roughly five hours to top up our car with fuel.

We passed a few large cities on the way to our destination and there were terrible traffic jams. I remember in one instance, we had to cross a bridge that was under construction, which took us seven hours.

As soon as we arrived in Karpaty, I let out a sigh of relief. At one point, I didn't think that we were going to make it. I was thankful that we had a temporary place of refuge. I immediately went to the supermarket and bought a stockpile of food and then went onto a booking website and began to look for temporary accommodations. But almost every property in the western part of Ukraine was already booked up, so, we stayed with our friends in Karpaty.

Although I was terrified, our neighbors who chose to stay in Irpin updated us on the state of the neighborhood. I later received a text from our neighbors telling me that another house across the street from ours was on fire.

As the weeks went on, I was hearing terrible news about bombings happening in our area. I was scared for all of my friends, and some of my employees who chose to stay in the city.

In mid-March, the last thing that I found out from our neighbors before they evacuated Irpin was that a Russian tank was stationed in our yard and it was shooting around indiscriminately. Several shells had hit the wall of our house, and one hit my child's bedroom. The day that my neighbors evacuated the area, they also told me that my roof was on fire. I was devastated.

Initially, I had hoped that my house would not collapse and that the damage to it would be rather limited. However, in April, when Irpin was finally liberated, people slowly began to move back there. When I visited our house in person, I saw that it was badly destroyed. Our kitchen had no roof at all, and the remainder of our house was burned down. It was devastating.

Rebuilding our war-torn home

On social media, I follow a Ukrainian minister who helps develop our country and he announced the creation of UNITED24 platforms in May 2022, an initiative that was set up by President Zelenskyy to rebuild the houses in Ukraine.

The platform encourages people all over the world to help Ukraine by fundraising to rebuild the houses that were destroyed in the war.

One of the initiatives that the organization planned was the rebuilding of the 18 houses in the Kyiv region that were destroyed in the war. Luckily, our house was selected to be on the list by the government. It was a really pleasant surprise that many people, including my family and me, finally have hope to return to our own dwellings.

Our home is in the process of being rebuilt and I am thankful that we will get to return there in the near future. My family and I are living in the same apartment complex, but in my friend's flat until then.

I'm very impressed by how people all over the world are helping Ukraine and I would encourage people to keep donating.

Ukraine is my home. I want to work here. I want to live here. I want to develop my life here, and I don't want to live in any other place but Ukraine.

It's inspiring to me how united the Ukrainians are and how we have all become a big family. Having the support of other people around the world means a lot to us. It's a wonderful feeling when you realize that you are just one small drop of water, and all of these drops, being other countries, come together to form a big ocean. This strong ocean is enough to bring us all to victory.

Yana Psaryova is a mother-of-one and she owns a lingerie business. The Ukrainian government initiative, UNITED24, will be rebuilding her house after it was destroyed in the war. You can find out more about the fundraising platform and donate here.

All views expressed in this article are the author's own.

As told to Newsweek associate editor, Carine Harb.

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