Yuliia was 15 years old, from the settlement of Novoaidar in Luhansk region, when on the very day of the full-scale invasion, military vehicles pulled into their yard. People in black uniforms entered the house and confiscated every phone and router. Late that evening, Russian soldiers led Yuliia’s father out of the room and put him in a car. He walked in handcuffs — but with a smile on his face, so as not to frighten his daughter. That same day, her mother was taken as well. For an entire year, Yuliia had absolutely no idea where they were being held, and lived together with her grandmother. 

“With every ounce of strength I had, I tried not to think about it — to wait for better times, when my parents would come back, and my brother, whom they also took away…” 

Yuliia continued going to her school, where there was no longer any Ukrainian language, and where children stood in assembly lines every Monday and listened to the anthems of the Russian Federation and the so-called LNR. Teachers told them that “Russia came to protect you” — and Yuliia recalls that no one understood: protect them from whom? 

In February 2024, the girl was finally told: there was an opportunity to see her parents. The meeting was brief — but brief was enough to see everything. Her parents were pale and utterly exhausted. Her father had a split lip and knocked-out teeth. On her mother’s body, a knife wound gaped from her chest to her neck; her ribs were broken, and the marks of an electric shock device were clearly visible. 

“Even then I understood that things would hardly be alright — even though I desperately wanted them to be…” 

Her parents were sentenced: 18 and 16 years of imprisonment. Yuliia is now in the care of a relative and continues to wait for her parents and brother to return. When they are finally released from a Russian prison — she will already be 33.