“Every morning, I woke up at 7 a.m. and went to the store. It was the only place where I could connect to online classes at my Ukrainian school,” says Mykyta about his schooling during the occupation. Sometimes, sitting there was terrifying, especially when people asked the cashier about him. She would then throw a jacket over the boy and say he was security. At any moment, Russian soldiers could have checked Mykyta, and that would have put him and his family in danger.

Mykyta is a regular 16-year-old boy who loved sports and always brought his friends to play football. But his carefree childhood was abruptly interrupted by war. At the time of the full-scale invasion, Mykyta was visiting relatives, where the occupation found him. The teenager remained separated from his family for two years. He remembers anxiously following the news every day, knowing that Russian forces were bombing an airport near his home, yet he couldn’t contact his parents.

Throughout this time, Mykyta stayed with his relatives, helping them with household chores. It was dangerous to go outside; the occupiers could stop and check documents anywhere. But he had to go to the store for bread. One day, they stopped him there. A soldier told Mykyta to get Russian documents, or they would take him to an orphanage. The teenager recalls how persistently the occupiers offered him a “vacation” at one of the Russian camps. But he refused, knowing what that could lead to.

Meanwhile, Mykyta’s parents looked for a way to bring him home. Their son didn’t have Russian documents, and they couldn’t enter the occupied territory. An underage child couldn’t leave without an adult escort and proper documents. Mykyta had even begun to lose hope that his parents would be able to get him out. But staying there had become increasingly dangerous, as the occupiers threatened to start raiding homes and checking documents in September.

Fortunately, Mykyta’s mother reached out to Save Ukraine just in time. It’s hard to describe the emotions of his parents and Mykyta when they reunited after such a long separation. “They brought him back so grown up… he’s a head taller than me now, more mature,” his mother said, seeing her son after two years.

However, occupation doesn’t pass without leaving scars—it leaves invisible wounds. Under the enemy’s control, Ukrainians risk their lives every day. The world needs to hear these stories. Please share this video so that as many people as possible can learn about them.