Yuliia Shchedrovska helped her mother escape the Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia just in time.
The Ukrainian-born Darwin resident spent hours on the phone with her mother Olena – who lives alone in the south-eastern city – helping her devise a plan.
Not long after her decision to leave, the nearby nuclear power station came under fire."We spent the whole night trying to work it out and how it could be done," Yuliia said.
"It's been like this always, it's just been the two of us. She was a single mum."
For days Olena had her bag packed, sleeping in her clothes in case she needed to flee in a hurry.
She does not drive, the trains in her city no longer run to a timetable, and it is dangerous to be alone in the streets at night.
Yuliia was struggling to convince her mother to leave.
"It is a difficult decision, I don't blame her, she was scared," she said.
"You cannot take much, you can't even take the albums with our grandparents' photos."
Olena's city is about four hours' drive from Donetsk, the eastern breakaway region said to have triggered the war.
"So that makes it very, very scary, and they kept moving towards the direction of her city," Yuliia said.
"She had to cross the whole country, she's literally on the other side of the country."
After finding a photo of a railway into the city destroyed by an explosion, Yuliia told her mother not to wait any longer.
Olena went to the train station, lined up with her small bag, and a train arrived two hours later.
"So she could sleep, I was monitoring the sirens messages to call to wake her up if necessary," Yuliia said.
Despite the challenges, Olena has now completed one of the most terrifying journeys of her life.
"I feel like I have become 10 years older all of a sudden and it has only been one week," Yuliia said.
"The fear runs through you, it's just terrifying fear. It's probably from feeling helpless."
There was no phone reception on the long train journey and Yuliia waited nervously without sleep for news from her mother.
Finally, she received a text message from her mother in Lviv and they found a bus for her to cross the border into Lublin, Poland.
"While she was on the train it was probably the toughest time of the whole week," Yuliia said.
Andrew Renkas was born in a village in north-west Ukraine and he and his family now live in Palmerston, a satellite city near Darwin.
His father lives alone with blindness and is "too stubborn" to flee his house in the village, where he is cared for by neighbours and daily routines provide comfort.
"He knows where everything is by feeling around," Mr Renkas's wife Michelle said.
The couple have fond memories of taking their two children to visit extended family in Ukraine, where Mr Renkas would be immediately "put to work" chopping wood for winter.
For the past week, Ms Renkas has never seen her husband so tense.
Mr Renkas's siblings Oleksandr and Olga have decided to stay in Ukraine with their families, despite their proximity to the destruction.
"I asked my brother and sister, would you like to come to Australia?" he said.
"My brother said, 'My children won't leave, they won't leave because it's their home.'"
Mr Renkas's brother has decked out his car with a generator, a coffee machine and fresh bread to support Ukrainian soldiers.
In Darwin, Mr Renkas has been selling possessions and donated items to raise funds to help his brother.
He has also painted his car with an anti-war slogan, with help from a local business.
"They did it straight away, they were so generous with their time and didn't charge me too much," he said.
Across the world communities have shown support for Ukraine with rallies in cities and local fundraising appeals.
A small vigil was held in Darwin, with members of Polish, Latvian, Lithuanian and Indonesian community groups taking part.
Various buildings around the city have also been lit up with yellow and blue, the colours of the Ukrainian flag.
During the week Charles Darwin University launched a scholarship fund for Ukrainian students who arrive in the city on humanitarian visas.
The federal government approved more than 1,000 visas for Ukrainians displaced by the invasion on Thursday.
Before the COVID-19 pandemic, Yuliia's mother would visit her daughter and granddaughter in Darwin up to three times a year.
Olena had a plane ticket booked to visit the city this month and will now try to re-book her flight.
"So I am very hopeful to see Mum soon, I still cannot quite believe it," Yuliia said.
"It makes me feel terribly guilty, even ashamed to tell this story because so many other families are going through hell.
"But it also inspires me to do all I can for Ukraine and the nation of people who were ready to do all they can, trying to get a stranger's mum into safety."
