Two Ukrainian women reflect on moving to the UK four years after the Russian invasion

The full-scale invasion continues with no end in sight despite multiple peace talks attempts.

European officials arrived in Kyiv on Tuesday to mark the bleak anniversary of the start of the conflict, which has claimed the lives of more than 15,000 Ukrainian civilians, including 739 children, according to the UN Human Rights Office.

Anna Ovchynnikova, 37, decided to leave Kyiv in March 2022 when bridges to hold up advancing Russian troops were destroyed near her home.

She first took her daughter, Kseniia, nine, and her mother, Nataliia, 66, to Germany for three months before they were invited to stay with a host family in Sonning Common through the national Homes for Ukraine scheme.

The trio stayed with Andrew and Kathleen Saoulis for two and a half months before her mother returned to Ukraine in June 2024 to care for her elderly mother.

The remaining pair then moved to Caversham, where Kseniia joined Thameside Primary School and more recently to Henley.

Mrs Ovchynnikova said her primary goal is to ensure her daughter’s stable future. She said: “It has been quite difficult because we needed to start from scratch on our own but we’ve been very lucky.

“The first year was awful, the second was better and by the third year she settled and is quite happy here now. She plays tennis, music and does theatre and has lots of friends. The most difficult part is that I can’t see my friends and family and I feel alone here but I’m grateful to provide my daughter with stability and opportunities.”

She tries to visit Kyiv, once a year to see her father, Slava, 66, sister, Alexandra and husband, Oleksandra, 38, who have faced freezing temperatures at night during the coldest winter in years, with temperatures reaching as low as -26 degrees.

Mrs Ovchynnikova said: “In January, my sister gave birth to her second son, Lucas, which was incredibly difficult in the current circumstances because the hospitals quite often have no electricity or water because of the bombings.

“A newborn baby can lose temperature very quickly, especially when it hits minus 20, so she had to leave the capital to go to our parents’ house, where they have special equipment so they can heat without centralised electricity.”

Speaking with family and friends in Ukraine, they say they are exhausted and continue to face rising prices and pressures with children out of school.

She said: “It’s a shame that so many good people are dying every day and losing their families. Even if the war stops, we cannot get the remaining people’s lives back who have been destroyed and injured emotionally and physically.”

Mrs Ovchynnikova believes Russia’s true aim is to destroy Ukraine’s independence, not just territorial expansion and fears Russia would not stop even if territorial demands were met.

Ukrainian and US delegations held bilateral talks in Geneva yesterday (Thursday), focusing on what Zelensky described as a “prosperity package”.

Preparations are also underway for a new round of trilateral negotiations involving Russia in early March.

Valentina Korovina, 38, who lives in Highmoor with her husband, and two children, Nikita, six, and Anna, four, but lived near Kyiv before the invasion.

Mrs Korovina told of how her family were forced to leave their home just days after her daughter’s birth on February 20, 2022. She said: “On the morning of February 24, 2022, it must have been at about five o’clock, I saw a military plane flying. Our family flat was on the second floor, it wasn’t very high off the ground, so the plane was flying very low and we heard incredibly loud noises. I was so afraid.

“We had such a good life in Ukraine, I couldn’t actually believe this was happening. But every day we stayed, the situation just got worse. Some people were so desperate that when the roads were blocked so they couldn’t drive, they ran. People would pack their lives into a suitcase, grab their children and pets, and just run.

“I hope that Europe can help Ukraine because we don’t have a really big population, and so many Ukrainian men, and women, have died fighting.”

Mrs Korovina said that both her mental health and that of her children is better than it was. “I see my children can study and grow up in a safe environment, communicating with other children.”