The spring of 2022 in her native Mariupol was a living hell for Lili. Russians shot her stepfather in the head, who was volunteering in the city at the time and helping to bury neighbors right next to their doorsteps. He was buried next to the one he had buried before. Then her great-grandmother was almost killed by a Russian air bomb, and she was wounded in the leg. There was no one and nothing to treat the injury, so everything healed as it was. Lilya walked with a swollen leg and pain.

The girl lived with her boyfriend’s parents. It was miraculously lucky that before the war started, they had stockpiled pasta and a large container of water. They melted snow and collected rain. They cherished drinking water as the apple of their eye. For food, they ate pigeons. A couple of times we were lucky enough to get bread on the street and that was it. The only communication we had was the radio. That’s how we heard that the road out of Mariupol went through Mangush, from there to Berdiansk, and then to Zaporizhzhia, when we were still allowed to go that way.
We left Mariupol in April, after a month and a half of occupation. We walked past Russian checkpoints during pauses for reloading enemy artillery. On the way, there were many dead bodies of local residents. Because of her leg injury, every step and street near the factories was worth her life to Liliia. The Russians then mined 4 civilian evacuation buses and offered Mariupol residents to ride in them to automatically trigger the detonation. They passed through the plants, but did not even realize that the Ukrainian military was based there and the danger they were exposing themselves to.

It took about 5 hours to leave the city. Lilya was carrying a heavy backpack with which she fell to the ground during the shelling and could not get up because of the pain in her leg. She says she was literally lifted by that backpack like a dog by the skin of its teeth. Lilya was wearing a long reversible down jacket and deliberately turned the pink hood up so that the military could see that the girl was walking first. Everyone believed that no one would shoot at her.

Meanwhile, Lily’s brother Artem remained in her hometown, on the opposite bank. But she could not take him with her because it was too far and dangerous to go to him. Her father did not allow her to risk her life. Then the girl thought that the war would end quickly, so she would meet him later. After all, there was no connection with them anyway.

Artem lived with his grandmother and great-grandmother under fire for about a month. And when their apartment was destroyed by the Russians, volunteers took them to Ryazan to treat his great-grandmother for her injury. When the city became quieter and the great-grandmother recovered, they were returned home. Fortunately, the volunteers, although Russian, supported the Ukrainians and made sure that social services did not take the boy to an orphanage.

Artem is an orphan. His mom and dad (Lily’s stepfather) died. After his mother’s death, the documents for guardianship were quickly drawn up by another grandmother who did not live with Artem, just to receive money for the child. But the boy never lived with her. The woman received 10 thousand rubles for him, and Artem himself lived with strangers associated with the volunteers. Lilya asked that his great-grandmother and grandmother with a disability, whose apartment was destroyed and with whom he had lived before, take him in. But there was not always a connection with them. The sister was afraid that her brother would be taken to an orphanage and then adopted by a Russian family, and she would never see him again. That is why she decided to go back to Mariupol to get Artem.

To travel to the territory of Russia, Lily first had to collect the necessary package of documents. It took several months and a lot of effort. Luckily, she managed to meet Save Ukraine volunteers who helped her organize the trip and all the documents with consultations. She was very nervous before the trip. However, everything went smoothly, and now Lilya and Artem are in Ukraine, safe and sound. The girl is studying to become a designer, works in the digital field, and her boyfriend is serving in the Armed Forces. And Artem is very happy that he is finally with his sister.