Olena, along with her husband and five children, was forced to flee the occupation twice. Her husband almost died as a result of torture by the russians, the occupiers tried to take her children away from her, and they were subjected to the difficult filtration process at the border. Olena shared her painful experience with us and explained how the war changed her family forever.

Olena's family is from the Donetsk Oblast. After the war broke out in 2014, they lived under occupation for a year, until in February 2015 they realized that it was impossible to stay there any longer. They were under constant surveillance by the occupiers.

“We became undesirable. My husband was taken prisoner, I could have been arrested at any time,” she says.

Olena and her children left, and her husband stayed at home for a few days, hoping to protect the property. It almost cost him his life. The occupiers took him prisoner, severely beat him, and then discarded him, thinking he was dead. However, some kind people found him and helped him recover. He was later able to leave thanks to the Donbass SOS organization.

After that, the family could no longer return to their home — their names were already on the lists of the occupation authorities.

A village in the Zaporizhzhia Oblast became a new refuge for the family. But in 2022, the situation repeated itself — they found themselves under occupation again.

“The children were afraid to even leave the room,” Olena recalls.

Every interaction with other people was a risk, and inspections were regular. The occupiers often came, checked their phones, and asked why they had not yet received russian passports. Olena and her husband deceived the occupiers, saying that they planned to get passports in Donetsk, where they were registered, and thus avoided persecution.

The children did not attend a russian school but secretly studied online at a Ukrainian one. This became a serious challenge for both the adults and the children.

“First, there was always the fear that they could come to check. They threatened to cut off the Internet if they found out that the children were studying online,” Olena recalls. The occupiers also threatened to send the children to a boarding school.

“We hid our phones, leaving only old push-button or very old touchscreen phones. We told them it was impossible to study when we only had such phones,” she adds.

Such gimmicks were the only way to escape the occupiers' punishment. Olena recounts that they tried to maintain the appearance of a normal life, although the situation was far from it.

The key moment for Olena was one incident after which she realized that it was no longer possible to remain under occupation. “People from the occupation authorities visited the family of the school principal. They gave them only half an hour to get ready. The principal was taken to Abkhazia, and his wife was sent to somewhere in russia,” Olena recalls. It was part of a system where families were deliberately separated to create even more difficulties. “They do this: they send someone to Veselivka and someone to Vladivostok. It's a real mockery,” she says.

The occupiers also came to Olena with threats.

“If you don't get our passports, we will take the children away,” said a representative of the occupation authorities. Then Olena decided to contact the Ministry for Reintegration in order to find out how to leave.

“They sent me a link to the Helping to Leave bot. Then the operator helped organize our departure,” she says.

The process of leaving the temporarily occupied territory was a real challenge for Olena's family.

“My son and husband were beaten. My husband lost consciousness; he had an epileptic seizure,” Olena recalls. “The children were in shock, they were not used to such conditions.”

After leaving the occupation, the family spent several difficult months coping with stress.

“In the first months, we were scared of even someone driving up to the house,” says Olena.

Now the family is adapting to the new conditions. They continue to live and seek paths to a better future, overcoming the difficult experiences they have gone through.