Anastasiia survived the occupation, endured the abduction of her son-in-law, and spent two years watching her grandson, Roman, slowly fade away, confined to the four walls of their home.

Shortly after the full-scale invasion began, Russian soldiers broke into their home—wearing masks and armed with assault rifles. They led Roman’s father away in handcuffs, with a bag over his head, taking him to an unknown location without a single word of explanation. For over a month, the family had no idea if he was even alive. Later, they found out the truth: he had been held in the basement of a police station, where he was interrogated and tortured with electric shocks. When he was finally released, he came back a completely different person, his nerves completely shattered. Roman witnessed all of this. And he completely withdrew into himself.

“After that, we didn’t let the boy go anywhere—and he didn’t want to anyway. For over two and a half years, he stayed indoors without ever leaving the house. It was only this year, when there were fewer Russian soldiers on the streets, that he started going out to the playground to use the pull-up bars,” Anastasiia shares.

The teenager kept everything bottled up inside, as trusting anyone under occupation was too dangerous. Besides, Roman’s friends had left one by one; his last remaining classmate moved away last year. Roman attended his Ukrainian school online, keeping the windows tightly shut and the lights off to avoid drawing attention. He knew all too well that the slightest misstep could get him or his parents thrown back into a basement. Recently, the boy had almost completely stopped eating. Anastasiia made the decision to flee when she realized they simply couldn’t go on like this anymore.

“Roma is already 16. Soon he’ll be 18. What happens then? Do we stay here just so he can be taken as cannon fodder?” the woman shares.

Save Ukraine helped Roman’s family escape. At the train station, finally on Ukrainian-controlled territory, Anastasiia heard the song “How Could I Not Love You, My Kyiv” playing—and for the first time in three years, she burst into tears.