Veronika is an IDP from Sievierodonetsk. In May 2022, she planned to graduate from school and enter the university, but the war changed her plans. From the first days of the full-scale invasion, the russian occupiers shelled Sievierodonetsk with aircraft and artillery. For 17 days, Veronika hid in a bomb shelter with her grandmother.
“On March 5, an enemy shell destroyed our flat. My boyfriend, his mother, brother, and stepfather were there. My boyfriend had no time to hide in the corridor, and a fragment hit him. All hospitals were full of wounded; ambulances did not come because of the shelling. We had to treat the wound ourselves, but it festered”, Veronika recalled.
The girl remembers that russian quadcopters were constantly flying over the city, adjusting the fire of shells. When people came out of the bomb shelters, they were hit by cluster shells. The first attempt to evacuate the city was unsuccessful, and Veronika was hit by artillery fire.
On March 18, the girl managed to evacuate from Sievierodonetsk. The first three cars leaving the city under white flags were shelled. Veronika went to Dnipro with her grandmother and then abroad. In October, she returned to Kyiv. Her wounded boyfriend was rescued in Rivne. He has been rehabilitated and is now studying and working.
Veronika’s mother and her younger sister lived under occupation near Mariupol for a long time. Since the beginning of the full-scale war, they couldn’t leave due to evacuation convoys shelling.
“The russians were constantly listening to my phone calls. Then they called me and threatened to kill my mother and sister if I did not pass on information about the location of the Armed Forces of Ukraine”, Veronika said.
Her family has moved to Kherson, and she plans to enter the university this summer.
The Vostok SOS Charitable Foundation provided Veronika with food set in May.
The activity is supported by the Diakonie Katastrophenhilfe as part of the project “Assistance to the war-affected population in Ukraine in winter conditions”.
