Mariia and Anatolii: “It hurts that the war is taking our children”
Mariia and Anatolii: “It hurts that the war is taking our children”
The older couple lived in the village of Khatnie near Kupiansk in Kharkiv region that was occupied at the start of the full-scale Russian invasion in 2022. They spent seven months under Russian occupation before the village was retaken by the Ukrainian army. In 2024, when a new Russian offensive started, Mariia and Anatolii were evacuated to Kharkiv city. With them, they brought a painting of their three sons, one of whom died protecting Ukraine in the armed forces.
Interviewed by Iryna Tymchyshyn, UNHCR Ukraine.
“We are rural people. Our grandparents and great-grandparents all lived in the village and were farmers. We have been together for 52 years. We went to the same school. but did not know each other then. We met on 30 December 1971. On 31 December, we celebrated the New Year together, got married a year later, and have never parted since.
We had a good life in our village. We felt like we were flying on wings. We had everything in our home—hot water, a shower, a kitchen, an oven, a stove. We kept a lot of livestock, chickens, geese, rabbits, piglets. Flowers bloomed around the house, and just nearby were a pond and a forest. We were always surrounded by nature.
“Our village, Khatnie, in the Kupiansk district of Kharkiv region, had about 800 residents. Before retirement, I worked as a cook and a cultural director at the village club. We regularly organized concerts and community evenings. We lived a happy life. We raised our three sons—Oleh, Kostiantyn, and Anatolii—to be patriotic and to love Ukraine. They were always deeply devoted to their homeland, and two of them left to defend us, when the war came.
We were deeply asleep, when the Russian invasion began. We woke up to the sound of explosions nearby. The road to Kupiansk is just 100 meters from our house. We looked out the window and saw a column of Russian military vehicles, 100 to 200 trucks. They told us, “You’re ‘ours’ now; we’ve ’liberated’ you…”
And so, we ended up under occupation for seven months. All the shops and institutions closed immediately, and there was nowhere to withdraw money. We did not receive our pensions for seven months. Fortunately, we had food supplies and preserved goods in the fridge, so we did not go hungry. But we were constantly afraid. During the occupation, we hid our two sons and risked our lives every single day.
The Russians set up checkpoints all over the village, but they did not enter our house, just the yard. We hid all the newspapers from them, even a photograph of our grandson where he is wearing a traditional embroidered shirt and Ukrainian clothes.
It was very difficult, but we survived it all. Our village was retaken by Ukraine on 11 September 2022. That was a huge celebration for us. One of our sons went to fight right away, and the other joined the army in January 2023. He was sent to the east, near Avdiivka and other hotspots. He was wounded and returned home for treatment. He spent a long time in hospitals in Kharkiv. A year ago, in May 2024, we lost him. He suddenly had internal bleeding, and they could not save him. We buried him in Kharkiv—in the Alley of Heroes, where hundreds of other soldiers are buried. It’s incredibly hard to cope with the death of your child and to see our people dying.
“The only thing I pray for is that the war ends, and they all return to us alive. And for us to return home to our village. We want to believe we will live to see that day.”
“I’m 70 now, and my husband is 74. And at this age, we had to flee our home. A year ago, when the new Russian offensive on Kupiansk began, our house was hit by shelling. We hid in the cellar. I held my husband so tightly that my arms hurt. We clung to each other, heard everything flying around, and I said, “Tolia (short name from Anatolii), our house is surely gone.” The cellar door was blown off, the lights went out. Our neighbors came running and asked, if we were alive.
I was the first to come out. I saw our dog lying dead, the barn’s roof torn off, everything in the yard turned upside down. My husband came out and said, “I could survive another shelling like that, my wife has not hugged me like that in 50 years.” Everyone started laughing. That’s how we Ukrainians are—just a step away from death and already making jokes. That’s how resilient we are ...
After that, we were evacuated to Kharkiv, and we have been living in a dormitory for over a year now. People take care of us here. Someone checks on us every day, asking how we are. We cook our meals in the shared kitchen, and at our age, we do not need much. But we really miss the land. We look out the eighth-floor window and wonder why we are here, and why Russia has wronged us so deeply.
The war threw us here, but we dream of only one thing. Many of our relatives are fighting—our son, nephews, grandsons. The only thing I pray for is that the war ends, and they all return to us alive. And for us to return home to our village. We want to believe we will live to see that day.”
Mariia and Anatolii found temporary shelter in a collective site in Kharkiv city that has been rehabilitated by UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, in order to improve the living conditions for displaced people.
