From dignity to victory

Six months after Russia's invasion started, I gave birth to my child and breastfed her for the first time in a bomb shelter, to the sound of sirens. I moved from Ukraine to Poland with my baby and despite the joy of motherhood I had never felt so much loneliness and darkness as I did there, far from home, when my country was fighting the enemy, and I was not. But soon I joined the fight for victory.

It all started for me at night on Cathedral Square in Vilnius. There, there was not a single soul, snow was gently falling from the sky and a flash was shining dimly on the camera of the Lithuanian cameraman who was also my driver and guardian angel. An hour ago, I had flown in from Kyiv. The city was sleeping and the streets were quiet. Yet in a few minutes it would be six o'clock in Kyiv and I had to join the morning news – the first broadcast of the new Ukrainian TV channel Espreso, the launch of which our young team had been preparing all autumn. It was an important day for me, but even more important for Ukraine.