Veronika Kovalenko was brought to tears when the first liberation of the territories in Ukraine's Kharkiv region began.
"We couldn't believe it," she told the ABC.
"We cried. We laughed.
"With each SMS about the liberation of the territories [that] came in, it took my breath away."
This week, Ukrainian flags were hoisted across the region after the country's troops reclaimed swaths of territory in an extraordinary counter-offensive.
After six months of Russian occupation, more than 150,000 people around Kharkiv in the north-east were liberated.
The shock offensive sent renewed hope across the region that families could soon be reunited.
It also brought optimism the situation was finally changing on the ground and a Ukraine victory may come sooner than expected.
Ms Kovalenko escaped Khakiv — Ukraine's second-largest city — early in the invasion after hiding in a basement with her grandparents and 30 other people for eight days.
Over the past six months, the city has witnessed some of the fiercest fighting in the war with daily shelling and bombardments.
"It was difficult every day in Kharkiv. The explosions did not end for a single day," Ms Kovalenko said.
The 23-year-old was recently reunited with her partner in Kyiv after spending time in Poland.
She is now setting her sights on returning to her home city.
"We really want to go to our native Kharkiv," she said.
"We are really looking forward to the victory, but the liberation of the territories is already a victory for Kharkiv."
After great escape, zoo animals may return
Six months ago, there were turtles swimming in Oleksandr Feldman's backyard pool, zebras roaming across his lawn and monkeys wreaking havoc in the bedroom.
"My house looked like Noah's Ark," he told the ABC.
When Kharkiv came under Russian attack, the city's zoo was in the line of fire.
Mr Feldman — the zoo's founder — and a group of volunteers undertook a massive mission to get more than 5,000 animals to safety.
"I love animals so much, I put so much effort and work into saving them," he said.
The Feldman Ecopark team risked their lives to get the animals out of the firing zone and transported to various parts of Ukraine.
Six of the workers and volunteers died during the missions, Mr Feldman said.
"It was the hardest operation to evacuate animals right under enemy's fire, but thanks to the courage and professionalism of our team, we managed it," he said.
"They are real heroes."
Mr Feldman remained in Kharkiv and has been helping get supplies to people in suburbs where the shelling has been the most severe.
Now that thousands of Russian troops have retreated from the region, he is determined to rebuild his "savagely destroyed" zoo as soon as it safe enough.
"All of us are waiting for the end of the war. All of us are waiting for it to be safe," Mr Feldman said.
"This [the offensive] will give a lot of hope for the citizens who will already be able to recover from the stress."
Mr Feldman, who is a local MP, also has plans to help Ukrainians whose mental health has been impacted by the war.
Prior to the war, the zoo included a Centre of Psychosocial Rehabilitation, which worked with people suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
"This is exactly what is needed in Ukraine now, that is why a pilot project of rehabilitation spaces will be implemented in the Ecopark for helping all victims of the war," Mr Feldman said.
Liberated cities left decimated
Over the past week, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Ukraine had recaptured around 8,000 square kilometres in the north-eastern region of Kharkiv.
Now, authorities are uncovering the scale of the devastation.
The freshly liberated city of Izium — which Russia had been using as a logistics hub in the region — was nearly entirely destroyed, the president said.
A mass burial site containing more than 440 bodies was also discovered in a forest just outside the eastern city.
Polina, a 23-year-old from Kharkiv, is yet to hear from her mother- and father-in-law, who were living under Russian occupation in a town close to Izium.
She used to speak to them almost every week from Berlin, where she fled to in April with her two-year-old son.
"Since the recent news, I don't know what's going on there. We haven't been able to contact them yet," Polina said.
She said the village where her husband's parents live had been "completely plundered".
In the days after Ukraine's shock offensive, Russia stepped up its attacks on power and utilities providers, cutting electricity and water supplies in Kharkiv and other parts of the region.
"We look forward to hearing from my husband's parents that their village has been liberated," Polina said.
"For a long time, it seemed that this war could last forever. Now there is hope that it could end soon."
Polina's husband has been in Lviv in western Ukraine and she has not seen him since March.
They are eager to be reunited with her husband, but are waiting for more information.
"I'm still not sure if we will be able to live back in Kharkiv, but I really want to go back," she said.
"Now everything is very unclear. I don't understand what's going to happen next."
'The war is winnable'
Mr Zelenskyy has vowed to lead Ukraine to victory and called on the West to speed up deliveries of weapons systems to back the advance.
Ukraine's new offensive has some analysts predicting that the invasion may be changing trajectory.
Defence editor of The Economist, Shashank Joshi, told the ABC's The World program that a victory may come sooner than expected.
"The important thing from the past week is not the liberation of territory — as important as that is — it's the proof of concept," he said.
"It shows that Russia can be dislodged and it shows those who doubted it that Ukraine can advance and the war is winnable.
"I don't think it will happen in the next week or month, but I think it can happen next year with sufficient training and sufficient arms for the Ukrainians."
The Ukrainian advance could soon spread into Luhansk and Donetsk provinces, where Russia has concentrated its forces for months to expand territory held by separatists since 2014.
The frontline in eastern Ukraine was approaching the borders of territory claimed by the separatist Luhansk People's Republic (LPR), a senior Russian-backed LPR military commander told the TASS news agency on Wednesday.
Vladislav became trapped in an occupied city in the Luhansk region, where his parents live, when he went to collect them at the start of the war.
"I planned to come and take my family from there to a safer place," he told the ABC.
"As soon as I arrived there, two days later, Russian troops occupied the city."
He said life under occupation was like being in prison.
"They [Russian troops] instilled fear in everyone and set an early curfew to make it easier to control us. it was terrible," Vladislav said.
"Prices skyrocketed, the military took property and businesses from many of my acquaintances and stole cars, while threatening them with a machine gun."
Vladislav and his family managed to escape when a border was opened.
The 25-year-old is now in Poland, but is certain he will one day be able to return.
"Hope has not disappeared," he said.
"I am always sure that I can still enter my native home, where I spent a happy childhood, the closest and dearest place to my heart on earth."
