Kyiv, Ukraine – First, the 52 -year -old nurse from the southern Ukrainian town of Voznesensk, feels as if the fear of war will never leave it, Three years In Russia’s extensive invasion of its country.

“when [shells] Al -Jazeera said: “You fly over your head, fall, wander, run, and hide like an animal.”

In early March 2022, days after the start of the war ordered by President Vladimir Putin, its city was “like a bone in the throat of the Russian army, as it advanced north of the attached Crimea.

They were on the left bank of the southern errors, 1.5 km (one mile) away from her small house, which was standing next to a military base.

She gathered together, and her paralyzed mother, 79, a disabled husband and a teenage son, heard and hid from one of the main battles of the Russian -Ukrainian war.

The Ukrainian forces detonated the bridges, which were shot on Russian tanks and pedestrians, and a helicopter – and thwarted Russia towards the nearby Ukrainian nuclear power station, and the cities of Odessa and Mikulif.

More importantly, the Russians were unable to reach the separatist transplantation from Moscow in the neighboring Moldova, 135 km (85 miles) southwest of Voznesensk.

If we look back, Olha proudly remembered how the city’s residents were “assembled together” to fill sandy bags, build barricades, man search points, and help each other.

The Russians retreated, but not far – and kept on Votinskinsk with the frequency that her husband forced to change the ceiling and windows three times.

When hiding on the bottom floor, they had shtedders at hand in the case of needing to get rid of themselves – and to examine the neighbors after each bombing.

But the first son of it was in a worse position.

He lived in Boch, a northern suburb of Kyiv, where the Russians killed hundreds of civilians, with his wives.

“If you are closer [to Bucha]She said, “I was running for him.”

They miraculously left Boca on March 13.

The first said: “We are still not talking about what happened.”

On August 20, 2022, a Russian missile destroyed a five -storey residential building in Fawznakk, 14, including three children.

A quarter of the city’s residents fled and replaced refugees from the areas occupied by Russia.

But the first family remained, as I found solace in their garden.

She said, “There are rockets flying, and we are growing and watering.” “We did not know if we were alive, but we built a second greenhouse.”

Then there was a power outage, food shortage and smooth mortar of her mother, which was born during World War II – and died in June 2022 of the natural causes.

The first said: “The poor thing was born during a war and died during a war.”

Russian forces fell south in November 2022, and the bombing receded.

These days, all that Olha wants is “Just Salam” – Something President of the United States Donald Trump She said not ready for her.

“It is frightening that anyone from this situation can bear such a mockery. It spit on the face.”

No home direction

While Olha survived in her hometown, nearly four million Ukrainians were subjected to internally displacement since the war began.

Mikola, a police officer, left his village near the southern Ukrainian city of Mariolol on February 25, 2022, a day after the start of the invasion.

He did not want to cooperate with the progress of the Russian forces and the authorities installed in Moscow-although many of his colleagues did so.

He also cut his ties with his relatives supporting generosity, and settled in the city of Boucrovsk, a strategic stronghold in part of the Donetsk region.

Mikola continued to work with the police while “getting used to the shooting and bombing.

In Boukerrovsk, which was attacked for months, the elderly helped to mobilize and leave, and often risk his life.

Then he was packed and left – and he did not feel nostalgic.

“I am more sad than the inability to go to my childhood places,” Mikola told Al -Jazeera.

He considers constantly whether he can return or visit – and live next to the people who chose the occupation.

What frightens it more, though, is fears that Russia will again absorb Ukraine.

He said that the West “often disappointed when they cannot understand that Ukraine is not just part of Russia but rather a truly separate country.”

A “monster state”

For Maria Communico, the 47 -year -old postal worker, was stolen by Russia’s factors from two final goodbye to her father.

She lived in Horlivka, a city from southeast plants and coal mines seized by Moscow -backed separatists in 2014.

She remembered the surrealistic atmosphere of the conflict at that time, saying that the local population toured them, looked at the armed men, the pro -Russian gatherings and “thinking about reality TV”.

In April 2014, my deputies protested the Russian flag, which was stuck over the city hall dead in a river with traces of torture.

Things were rolled down, and in early 2015, Comicarco left its partner and two children to the center of Ukraine.

After she left the southeast, she was unable to return and attend her father’s funeral in 2021.

Later, the family fled to Bakhmt, 40 km (25 miles) north of Horvka.

I realized bitterly that most Ukrainians preferred to ignore the separatists. She said that some “did not know what the war was” until the comprehensive invasion.

Her family is located to a rented apartment. While her six -year -old daughter adapted to this step, her son, 14, lost his friends.

He recently lost his friends again after uprooting the family again when the Russian forces had moved wandering with the ground.

“Here, he never got new friends.”.

She is in contact with her 76 -year -old mother, who remained in Horvka. But she stopped talking to her older brother, supporting Russia.

While working in a company that produces military equipment, it feels pessimistic about the return of the occupied territories “during my life.”

These days, little things – walking in the north and Kiev cultural scene.

“Every week, my husband and I go to the theater or an art gallery,” she said.

“My war is 11 years old”

On the third anniversary of Russia’s extensive invasion of Ukraine, many also remember the events of 2014.

The time for Maria Kuttalco stopped on February 20, 2014, when Russian soldiers landed in the Crimea to seize government buildings and military bases and guard an international referendum convicted of “the return of the peninsula to Russia.”

Kuchernko, a student of linguistics in the city of Sevastopol in Port, was nineteen years old, at the time.

She was afraid, but she criticized herself as “a young and compassionate woman.”

“I swore to myself to be this way anymore,” said Kootritko, 30, and I work as an analyst at the Kiev Thought Center, who supports Ukraine’s army members.

Sevastopol focused on a giant naval base that was rented for the Russian Black Sea fleet and became, according to the observers, a Trojan horse that affected the Crimea with feelings supporting the Kremlin and spoiled their elites.

Just a few days ago, a popular uprising in Kyiv Victor Yanukovic, a supporter of Russia. Kuttaleko was hoping that the new government would restore the Crimea and save the island of Crimea from all madness and chaos.

Instead, instructions were directed to the Crimea and the soldiers to move away, while the spectators supporting the employee chanted.

Kushrinko expressed their hope that the men around her will volunteer to fight the Russians.

But they did not do, and hours crying in a garden, on the beach, in its residence.

On the night of March 16, the “referendum”, saw the main square of Sevastopol.

“It seems that there will be no tomorrow, there will be only on that day with songs, dances, deadly people, and gossip of Russian folk songs,” she recalls.

Kushrinko decided that she prefers “death rather than recognizing defeat,” saying: “The latter is more terrifying for me.”

When the invasion began widely, the Russian forces fell in the Kyiv suburb of Hostomeel, where they rented an apartment.

But Kushrinko is no longer afraid.

She said, “The most terrible things happened to me in 2014.” “My 11 -year -old war. I will repeat it until I die. After all, I said that in [US] Congress. “

On November 24, on the first day of Russia’s large -scale invasion of Ukraine, it spoke in special listening sessions by the American Congress by the Helsinki Committee, which is to monitor human rights.

Then I told the American actors and the American, “Russia’s war against Ukraine began in 2014, with the inclusion of Crimea and military aggression in eastern Ukraine. However, the global community did not start until 2022 to describe what it really is: Russia’s war against Ukraine, instead It is framing as a “Ukrainian crisis”, as it was the previous eight years.