Ukrainian refugee in Teesside grateful for support three years on
Last updated 1st May 2025
Today marks the third anniversary since Russia's full scale invasion of Ukraine.
More than 200,000 Ukrainian refugees came to the UK for safety, including here in Teesside.
One of those is Olha Vovk who escaped from Zaporizhzhia and she has been living in Stokesley ever since.
She said: "The whole night I heard the battle for the nuclear power plant. Our soldiers were fighting and it was explosions and explosions from tanks and missiles.
"I definitely heard one of the explosions when my building was shaking when one of the military bases was being attacked probably by ballistic missiles or something. It was very, very loud and it was pretty frightening for me.
"When the Russians took our city, we heard gunshots all the time and it was real terror in the city. We didn't have any possibility to talk to each other, we were actually frightened and I was trying to stay in my flat as much as possible."
"My three years have been very, very unstable because I had to leave Ukraine when the occupation started. I lost my job, my property, my house, everything. I left Ukraine only with hand luggage. I had to start from scratch and that's why I'm grateful to every British person who opened their homes to us."
Her brother, Mykola, is currently in Kyiv and he said: "So first two months were the most difficult because basically we worked without any weekdays, without any breaks, we only had time for sleeping. We woke up at 7 o'clock in the morning and worked until 11-12 at night
"The most frightening explosion happen 50-metres from the block of flats where I live with my wife. I woke up from the sound of drones which was fine but then actually there was a terrible explosion. It was only one of the floors that suffered and luckily there wasn't any casualties.
"The Russians started producing drones and of course, the attacks with ballistic missiles and other types of missiles only increased and we started feeling it greatly, especially in Kyiv.
"A drone hit directly into the block of flats, into the seventh floor, and that was two-weeks ago. Unfortunately ordinary civilians died.
"The most silent explosion was when our air defence system hit a ballistic missile near Kyiv and it happened just behind this window. It was unexpected and all the personnel had a panic attack and we ran to shelter straight ahead.
"Unfortunately the drone attacks now have gotten much worse and we hear drones every night starting from 8 o'clock in the evening up until 6 o'clock in the morning. It's only a matter of luck where the drone gones."