Yuliia Vasylenko is a gymnasium principal who remained in the occupied territories of Kherson Oblast. She was in Novooleksandrivka until September. The occupation authorities demanded that she open the school and work in a new way. Faced with Yuliia’s resistance, the invaders began to threaten her. They conducted searches. They scared the children. They said that the refusal to cooperate would cost her her life and the lives of her family members. Then Yulia simply packed her entire life into one suitcase and left with her husband and children for the free territories.

“When we finally saw the Ukrainian flag, everyone who was on the bus just started howling,” she recalls.