Olga Prisyazhnyuk

The cook. No employment. Single mother. Raises two girls, ages 15 and 16. Daughter's school graduation this summer. Had a heart attack when she found out her house had burned down.

"It's hard, of course, when you're on your own. But you just want to be at home. The house is completely destroyed, but I feel better here. I want to be at home."

Lydia Maznichenko

The pensioner. Taking care of her 16-year-old granddaughter.

"From February 24-28, we hid in the basement of the house, we laid carpets on the floor, the children slept on mattresses, there were six of us and our neighbours and a dog. Then we escaped to Poland and further to the Netherlands. On the evening of March 15, neighbours called and said the house was gone. Sent a video of the house burning from a Grad shell. I want to have my own corner to live in. I don't know what will happen next.

Valentina Kunitska

The seller in the shop. There is no work, the place of work is destroyed.

"I left on 25 February, then my son called and said: "Mum, we have only walls left of the house". Everything I owned was burned in the fire. I have nowhere to go for the winter. I want to be close to my home. I will try to warm the barn for the winter, get a barrel for firewood and get warm. Thank God the forest is nearby, one day I will try to survive the winter".

Daria Kashpurovska

Before the war she worked as a seller in a supermarket. Now there is no work, the supermarket is destroyed. She is expecting a baby in a fortnight. Her husband is in the local territorial defence, doesn't have a salary. "We were lucky. The house didn't burn down completely, only the roof. But you can't live in the house now because the rain is falling directly into the rooms."

Galina and Sviatoslav Senik

Retirees. He is a former engineer, she is a librarian.

"We lived in this house together with our daughter's family. On the eve of all this hell, I gave her for her birthday a table set with paintings by Matisse. Unfortunately, we didn't get to use it once, you see, there's molten glass lying around, that's it."

Eugenia Sheinich

Retired, 75 years old. Before the war she worked as a nurse in a sanatorium. "It was very scary, on March 1 we went to Pushcha-Voditsa, to the sanatorium where I worked, there was a bomb shelter. We hid there for a while. We thought it was for three days, no one thought it would be for long. Then we went to a relative's house in Cherkasy oblast. When I returned, the house had already been destroyed. The fire burned all the documents, by the way, all that I had. Now I was sheltered in the sanatorium where I worked until my retirement. But it won't be for long.

Lyubov Anisimova

A retired woman.

"When the shelling of Gorenka started, my son drove me out of here. A week later, my neighbour, who was in the local defence force, sent a video to Viber, showing my house on fire at night. I went to the village council, and asked where I should live. They say: rent a flat for now, it costs about 3500 hryvnas, and I have a pension of 2900 hryvnas. For now I am living at my friends' place. I need to live here, I have flowers, a garden, chickens.