Our Story

My name is Yulia, I am from Zaporizhzhia. Before the war, my family had lived a happy life: we had just moved from a communal apartment to our own place. It was only a third of the house, but it was ours. Our long-awaited daughter had been born. My husband, Sasha, had built one more room for us. And he also had a dream – to cover an entire wall in the house with photos from our anniversaries. Now there are nine photos there. And there will be no tenth.

On February 23, I lived my last happy day. My husband came home from work for a couple of hours, we took our little daughter, and went for a walk. The sun was shining, and we were happy.

From the very beginning of the war, my husband said that he would not hide to avoid the military service, that he wanted to defend the country. He went to a military recruitment office, but they did not take him – people were not required.

In Zaporizhzhia, we live near an oil depot. It was often shelled. In late April, my husband was on the street when the shelling started. Our military shot down a missile, but its fragments scattered everywhere. One of them flew over Sasha’s head. He fell to the ground in time and survived.

Later, the husband received a summons. As he said, he did not hide from the service. And very soon Sasha’s unit was sent to Donetsk region. Together with his comrade, he went on a reconnaissance mission. They were spotted by the Russian military who started firing at them from a tank. The second guy received terrible injuries but survived. My husband did not. His death came before his 32nd birthday.

I was not informed about it for a long time. Consequently, we had only one day to arrange a funeral. And the next day would have been 9 days since Sasha died.

I do not remember the preparation, nor do I remember the ceremony. Vision was foggy, I cried constantly. And our child, our 2-year-old Alisa, cried with me. My parents died, my husband too. I was left with debts for the house and an unfinished room that Sasha did not get to finish. I did not know how I should live with this from then on. I looked at our wall of photos and cried.

I looked at the bricks my husband used to build the walls of our room and cried. I looked at the radiators that he mounted and cried. The child was withdrawn, stopped talking for a while, and had meltdowns. 

ABOUT THE PROJECT

Unbreakable Mom is a project of the Masha Foundation. The Saving Lives humanitarian initiative, launched by Metinvest Group in coordination with the Rinat Akhmetov Foundation, joined the Unbreakable Mom program. This project was created to stabilize the psycho-emotional state of participants, prevent the development of PTSD, develop the adaptability and self-realization, and create new social ties.

I realized that I was drowning, that I needed help I did not know, though, where to get it. And I found it in the Unbreakable Mom camp. Everything heals here: psychologists, art therapy classes, and views of the mountains from the window. My Aliska started playing with other children, smiling. And I can talk about my husband. I can hold his things in my hands. I still cry a lot, crying the pain out. I have a long way ahead of me, continuing to work with a psychologist. But I understand that I have someone to live for. I have our dear daughter, our Alisa.