Hello! We are from Ukraine, from Irpin!

The last time I saw my husband was when he saw us off to safety.

For the last two and a half years, my mother has lived with me and my family in our own apartment in Irpin. We were able to buy it because my mother sold her house in Volyn and was able to make a significant contribution to the cost. She moved in with us, we did the place up and all lived happily together.

On the first day of the war, when Russia launched its cowardly attack on Ukraine and we were all sitting in the basement, I apologized to my mother for persuading her to take this step. Because now I don’t know if we’ll still have our own apartment, but I promised her that everything will be fine. I cried before I went down to the basement as I was putting tags with our names as parents and our contact details in my children’s pockets. I told them to make sure that our things didn’t get mixed up with those of the other kids in the kindergarten.

Fortunately, we left for Volyn the next day. David vomited for a day and a half until I gave him a jab. The children were quiet as mice. We stayed with relatives for a day, and then a friend accepted my family and several other families into her house.

Iryna, Irpin