That morning, Olha had no idea it would be the last day of her normal life. Six military vehicles surrounded her house. Armed men in masks broke in and shouted, “Hands up!” They didn’t even let her get dressed. Wearing only a shirt and leggings, with a bag over her head and handcuffs on her wrists, she was shoved into a van and taken to an unknown location. In her mind, she was already saying goodbye to her family.

Five months in the occupiers’ torture chambers became a horrific ordeal. Interrogations came one after another. Systematic torture, rubber bullets to the collarbone, a knife to her throat, waterboarding with a wet rag over a basin—after all this, Olha would simply pass out, only regaining consciousness when they kicked her with their combat boots. One of the torturers even told her, “Now we are going to cut out your tongue.” Yet, she never confessed to things she didn’t do, and only the thought of her children gave her the strength to hold on.

While she was in captivity, her children were left completely alone. Her daughter was interrogated at school three times without an adult present; they slapped her, demanding she tell them something about her mother. “Social services” regularly showed up at their home, threatening to take the children away to a state facility.

Fortunately, Olha was released from captivity before they could take her children away. However, new trials awaited the family. They were forbidden from leaving, the children were forced to attend a russian school, and they had to regularly report on their lives to the “services.” The family was put on a wanted list: at the local store and post office, people were shown a photo of Olga labeled as a “highly dangerous individual.”

Thankfully, she managed to find information about Save Ukraine, and our team helped her escape the occupation, slipping unnoticed past all the russian checkpoints.

Today, Olha and her children are safe. She lives in our center, tends to the flowers she was gifted, and hurries to the kettle every morning to make coffee. “You just want to see your neighbors through the window and say ‘good morning’,” she says. In these simple words lies the true depth of what she had to endure just to have the right to a normal morning again.

Watch and share Olha’s full story so that as many people as possible can hear it.

If you want to help us rescue more children from occupation and support their safe return to Ukraine, you can donate here.