Under a relentless barrage of Russian attacks, much of Ukraine’s city of Vovchansk is now reduced to ruin, forcing many residents to flee. Among them is 82-year-old Tatyana Bekaryuk, who lost her husband to a direct airstrike on their home. “Imagine what it’s like to lose a person in a minute,” she said. “We lived together for 60 years.”

Moments before the missile struck their home in the northeastern Kharkiv region city in May this year, Bekaryuk had gone out into her garden to observe the streets after hearing explosions.

A month after Ukrainian tennis star Sergiy Stakhovsky announced his retirement from professional tennis, he was on vacation in Dubai with his wife and three children. It should have been a celebratory occasion, a break from Budapest where they had settled. Then, he received phone calls from his friends, who told him that Russia had invaded Ukraine.

Two days later, Stakhovsky flew back to Hungary and took a train to Kyiv, leaving his family behind while he played his part in fighting for his country. He immediately joined the territorial defences