“For Six Months, I Kept Saying, ‘Dad, Let’s Leave!’”: The Story of the Makarenko Family from Novotroitske, Zaporizhzhia Oblast
Nina Makarenko and her daughter Olha lived in Novotroitske, Zaporizhzhia Oblast. In August 2026, their home was damaged in a russian airstrike, and their household was destroyed. Nina’s husband was killed, while the two women miraculously survived. Volunteers evacuated them to a transit center in Zaporizhzhia. After their evacuation, the family received psychological support from Yuliia Danyliuk, a Psychologist with East SOS, who helped them cope with the loss of a loved one and their home.
The Makarenko family had their own house and household in Novotroitske. Nina grew flowers and, together with her husband, tended the garden, vegetable patch, and livestock. They spent many years of their lives together here, surrounded by familiar daily routines and caring for their home. As it became increasingly dangerous to remain in the village, Olha began urging her parents to leave.
“For six months, I kept saying, ‘Dad, let’s leave, let’s leave!’ I told him, ‘I don’t need any belongings. We’ll manage. Let’s leave!’” she recalls.
Her father did not want to leave his home. During another attack on the village by the russian army, an aerial bomb struck the family’s property. Olha was trying to make her way down to the cellar and had just reached the first step when she heard a whistling sound. The blast shattered the windows and partially collapsed the house. Nina was inside one of the outbuildings. The ceiling collapsed onto old metal bed frames, which held the rubble above her and saved her life. Olha heard her mother’s voice and helped her crawl out from under the debris. Their father was outside at the time, tending to the household.
Her daughter recalls, “I kept telling him, ‘Hide, hide,’ but he wasn’t afraid.”
That day, he was killed. Volunteers managed to evacuate Nina and Olha from the village and take them to a transit center. On August 13, Yuliia Danyliuk, a Psychologist with East SOS, met the family there.
“In a very short period of time, they lost someone close to them and everything they were used to. They needed to talk about it – about their husband and father, about their home, about what they were feeling. They simply needed to know that there was someone nearby who would listen and support them,” the psychologist says.
Yuliia spoke with Nina and Olha whenever she visited the transit center. During these meetings, the women could talk about what they had been through, express their emotions, and gradually process them, finding the strength to move forward one step at a time.
The family stayed at the transit center for a month. In addition to psychological support, the East SOS team provided Nina with a mobile phone and helped her open a bank account so she could receive the benefits she was entitled to.
In September, the women left for relatives in Khmelnytskyi Oblast. Their family members found a small house where the mother and daughter are gradually settling in. Nina often thinks about her husband and misses him. Together with Olha, she continues to follow what is happening in Zaporizhzhia Oblast, reading local Telegram channels and calling people from their village. Staying connected with the people and the place where they spent their lives remains important to both women.
“I truly hope that they will continue living their lives there – good lives. And I’m very happy that they are finally safe and in a quiet place”, says Yuliia.
Psychosocial support is provided as part of the project “Protection-Focused Multisectoral Humanitarian Response in Eastern Ukraine” implemented with the support of ActionAid and funded by the European Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operations (ECHO).
The mobile phone was provided as part of the project “MESH: Multisectoral Emergency Support for High-Severity Hromadas” implemented by East SOS in coordination with The Right to Protection and with support from the Ukraine Humanitarian Fund (UHF).
