Tetyana Shapovalova from Kherson
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Good afternoon. I would like to tell you a little bit about my family. Until February 24, we were living peacefully, enjoying our lives, working. We lived in the city of Kherson. On March 1, the city was occupied and we lived under occupation for 3 months. During this time, we saw a lot of bad, terrible things. When you see your friends and neighbors being taken away with bags on their heads and taken to an unknown destination, taken prisoner, it is very scary because you cannot help in any way. There is no police, no medical care. You have nowhere to go for help. Under occupation, it was just scary, there was no food, you could stand in line for 2-3 hours for bread, then the Russian military would come with machine guns, disperse the line, and take the food. That is, you came home with nothing, and you had to feed your child something. Constant explosions, closed windows because their tanks were under the windows. In the evening they would shine flashlights through the windows, we lived on the 1st floor, so it was very scary. I was scared for my child because I did not know how to save him. We couldn’t go to the shelter because the Russian military were going through the shelters and taking people away. So it was better to stay at home, but there were also air raids, so there was nowhere to escape and run.
We just sat there waiting, we couldn’t leave because we didn’t have any green corridors. We stayed like that for 3 terrible months, and then we decided to take the child out, because after constant explosions and meeting Russians who were pointing machine guns at me and my child It was very scary!
And you don’t know what’s in their heads. So we decided to leave, and we left at our own risk and fear.
When we left, it was probably the worst day because it took us 12 hours to drive 40 kilometers. We were searched, stripped, we just didn’t know what kind of reaction they might have. We left without our belongings so that they wouldn’t see that we were moving, so we didn’t take anything from home, only our favorite cat. Tanks exploded near us, we were used as human shields, it is very difficult to talk about it. When I talk about it, tears immediately come to my eyes. This is probably the worst thing!
We moved from Kherson to Ternopil, where it was a little calmer. I have a daughter, Anna, who is 6 years old. It’s very hard because she wants to return to her room in her crib… But unfortunately, on June 6, Kherson was flooded, and a shell hit our house, so we have nowhere to go back to.
Now we live in Kyiv, and we rent a house.
We believe and thank our Armed Forces that we are alive! We believe in the Victory!