"We provided medical consultations directly at the railway station in retaken Kherson, where deminers are still working."

I woke up to loud explosions on the morning of 24 February 2022 in the city of Rubizhne, Luhansk region. I was terrified. Each day, the fire and shelling intensified, and the frontline advanced relentlessly towards my city. My last working day in Rubizhne was 28 February, as I had been working as a state nurse in a rehabilitation center for veterans. The staff and patients were sent home. By 7 March 2022, there was no electricity or water in Rubizhne. We couldn’t even step outside our building because the shelling was so intense. Bombardments struck everywhere—neighbors' houses, schools, and other civilian structures.

On March 12, I woke up at 5 a.m. and realized that we had to flee. My family rushed to the garage to get the car, but we discovered that the battery was dead, which was a major problem. Fortunately, a man nearby was able to help us recharge it. After that, we joined others from our city and formed a convoy of 15 cars. The journey was incredibly dangerous due to constant shelling. We attached white flags—and any white fabric we could find—to our cars. Along the way, we witnessed many dead civilians in their vehicles. Thick black smoke filled the air, and ashes rained down on our cars; it was terrifying. Leaving behind my city and the life I had known was heartbreaking.

This was not my first time fleeing my home. In 2014, I had to leave Horlivka in the Donetsk region when the war began. However, at that time, it was not as terrifying. There were explosions, but they weren't as intense, and the escape was not as harrowing.

We arrived in the Dnipropetrovsk region, near the city of Kamianske, where local volunteers assisted my family in finding shelter. We were given a single room to accommodate the three of us and our dog. However, I couldn’t sit idle for long—I needed to work. I started searching for a job and found an announcement stating that Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) was looking for nurses for its medical train. I applied right away.

The very next morning, I received a call to discuss my experience. With 15 years of nursing in an infectious disease hospital and four years in a rehabilitation center, I had plenty of experience. They inquired how soon I could be in Lviv to join the MSF team and begin evacuating war-wounded patients by train. I was ready to go almost immediately.

I remember our first evacuations. The train transported children from Kharkiv to the safer western regions of Ukraine. One family had children with severe injuries—one had lost a limb due to a mine explosion, along with abdominal injuries and shrapnel wounds. It was emotionally difficult for me, as I had never seen such severe injuries before. But I knew I had to help—I had the skills and the determination to support those in need.

I will never forget evacuating a wounded family from Dnipro. Their car had been directly hit by a shell. One child had died at the scene, while the mother was in critical condition, unconscious, and on artificial lung ventilation (ALV). The second child was in more stable condition but also required ALV. All of them had mine and explosive injuries to their lower limbs. Only the father was conscious; he remembered everything that had happened to his family. It was devastating.

During my time with MSF, I participated in the response efforts in the recently retaken city of Kherson, located in southern Ukraine. Accompanied by the police, our team visited the city for the first time after its de-occupation. We traveled through villages that had been utterly destroyed. Kherson itself was desolate, with very few residents remaining. We established medical consultations at the railway station, which was one of the safer locations in the city. Nearby, deminers were working to clear the area of mines. They informed us that explosions might happen, so we wouldn’t be alarmed. We attended to patients there by checking their blood pressure and sugar levels, as well as distributing medications. Many patients were suffering from trophic ulcers and old wounds. One elderly man had no dressing materials other than two bandages, which he rotated to dress his wounds himself.

I currently work on MSF's early rehabilitation project in Cherkasy. Our multidisciplinary team provides physiotherapy, nursing care, and mental health support. Every day, I encounter numerous patients with severe injuries who urgently need early rehabilitation. They are all too familiar with pain. The war is far from over; I witness its consequences every single day.