The areas around Kyiv ravaged by the Russian invasion early in the war are now relatively safe, allowing people to return and see their loved ones in person. FRANCE 24 travelled to Irpin and met Marina, a Ukrainian woman who has lived in London for two decades but wouldn’t miss her mother’s birthday for the world.
The destroyed Irpin bridge – which part of Marina’s family used to cross the river as they fled the Russians on March 7 – has become a symbol of Moscow’s invasion and Ukraine’s resistance. Marina was keen to show it to her two sons before she went back to the UK.
But top of the agenda was seeing her elderly mother. “My mother is becoming quite frail so it was even more important for us to get together despite the war, to be together and to feel as a family, it just gives us strength, and the feeling that we will overcome this,” Marina said.
“Ukraine became independent when I was 20, now I'm 51,” she continued. “And I've lived through all of this just like millions of other Ukrainians, it's a defining story of our life, that Ukraine is becoming a country, a truly independent country, a truly European country, and it's paying a very high price.”
Click on the video player above to watch FRANCE 24's report.
