"Every day they are hoping for the Ukrainian army, every day they are hoping to be found," says Zhenia Myronenko, a refugee whose family has been cornered in the southern city of Kherson by Russian forces. The 36-year-old arrived in Nottinghamshire having escaped Ukraine earlier this year, and while she was fortunate enough to have fled with her life, her fears are only becoming graver for her family.
Ms Myronenko arrived safely in the UK on June 11, having mercifully been living in an apartment in the capital of Kyiv, which remains out of the grasp of Russian forces. Her parents, who are in their 60s, were not so lucky.
They were quickly trapped in Kherson, which sits to the south and is occupied by Russian forces, alongside Ms Myronenko's 33-year-old sister and her niece, who is just five. And just today (August 29) Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced his forces would be launching a counter-offensive on Russian president Vladimir Putin's army, with the aim of retaking the city on the Dnipro River.
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"They are really, really depressed," she tells Nottinghamshire Live. "And the Russians try to behave like they are the owners of this place.
"My parents have been told they must have their passports on them or they will disappear and go to jail. My father says it is his country.
"Someone we know of has already been taken by the Russians and killed. You never know if they want to take your car or your home.
"The Russians say teachers must replace all the books and all their teachings. No supermarkets are open. You cannot pay with your cards, it is only paper money, nothing works.
"That is why old-fashioned markets are working. People are trying to sell whatever they have left. They try to be in the centre of the city as rare as possible."
Ms Myronenko worked as a journalist for a national TV channel while in Ukraine, having left behind a career in architecture because she "wanted to fight for the truth" in the eight, long years when a Russian invasion was becoming increasingly likely.
When Putin ordered his forces in on February 24 this year, she managed to moved to Lviv in western Ukraine, where she attempted to find work to little success. This however fortunately gave rise to the opportunity to travel with a friend to Krakow, Poland.
Here, at a refugee camp in Galeria Plaza, a shopping mall which has been converted into a shelter, she was informed of the UK Government's 'Homes for Ukraine' scheme, and in March she applied for a visa. She spent more than two months here, organising activities for the children who had to flee their homes in Ukraine, as had she.
Her application proved a success, however, and she is today living with a host family in Cotgrave.
"They gave me a beautiful room," Ms Myronenko says. "The first month after I arrived I would just sleep all the time. But now I am looking for a job and I'm able to protest."
The former journalist took to the streets of Nottingham on Saturday, August 27. Individuals from the city and Ukraine itself marched into Sneinton Market where Ms Myronenko gave speeches and sang to the audience draped in blues and yellows.
While seemingly upbeat and impassioned, the anxious wait to hear news from her family, and her home city, remains at the forefront of Ms Myronenko's mind. The Ukrainian forces successfully breached Russia's first line of defence in Kherson this weekend, reports suggest, and they move forward in hope of reclaiming the territory, important in the production of wheat and flour across the globe, with the help of Western weapons.
Michael Holod, the branch chair of the Nottingham Ukrainian Cultural Centre which has helped Ms Myronenko and countless others, thanked those who had opened their homes to refugees. He added: "Since February 24 we have witnessed with our own eyes the evil that the cancer we know as Putin has spread and will be accountable for.
"We now have displaced adults and children amongst us here in Nottingham and in the UK at large, ask them what they have witnessed and why they have left their country if you have doubts about any of the western media. The support in the UK must continue and we are forever grateful to anyone who has made a donation of any kind and in particular those who have opened their hearts and homes to Ukrainian refugees."
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