Ukrainian Woman Forced to Flee Home Three Times Fears Nowhere Left to Run

A 65-year-old Ukrainian woman has been displaced three times during the ongoing war, with both her sons now missing. Nearly 4 million people remain displaced within Ukraine as the conflict enters its fifth year.

DZENZELIVKA, Ukraine – At 65 years old, Halyna Popriadukhina has been forced to abandon her home three separate times as Russian forces have advanced through eastern Ukraine over four years of conflict. Weary from constant displacement, she now prays Ukraine can find a way to stop their advance.

“I’m afraid there’s nowhere else to escape,” she said, her voice heavy with fatigue as she described how one son has disappeared in combat while the other is believed to be in Russian custody.

Popriadukhina represents just one of nearly 4 million internally displaced Ukrainians, in addition to over 5 million who have sought refuge across Europe, as the conflict approaches its fifth year next week. Many harbor deep fears they may never return to their homes or reunite with missing family members.

The fate of her native Donbas region – encompassing Ukraine’s industrial eastern areas of Donetsk and Luhansk – remains central to ongoing U.S.-supported peace negotiations aimed at ending Europe’s largest military conflict since World War Two.

Moscow is insisting that Kyiv surrender the remaining 20% of Donetsk territory that Russian forces have failed to capture – a demand Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has rejected despite reportedly being told privately by U.S. negotiators that such concessions could secure peace.

“We can’t just withdraw,” Zelenskiy stated this week. “We have to understand that Donbas is a part of our independence … It’s not about the land. It’s not only about territories: it’s about people.”

INVASION BEGAN DURING MORNING CHORES

Popriadukhina recalled she was tending to her cows alongside a friend when rockets started falling on February 24, 2022, marking the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion. Despite her reluctance, she eventually heeded her son’s pleas to evacuate, abandoning her home and the livestock that provided her livelihood.

“I tried to make it so that I had everything (in life),” said Popriadukhina, who previously worked on a collective farm.

“I didn’t take anything from there. Everything was lost.”

Following several months in western Ukraine, she returned to the Donetsk area during summer 2022 – but was compelled to flee once more last March as Russian troops continued their offensive. When enemy forces pushed further west into the Dnipropetrovsk region, she relocated yet again.

She currently resides in central Ukraine, hundreds of kilometers from her original hometown of Vremivka in the east, which Russian forces now control. Ukrainian officials provided her with a deteriorating, vacant house in Dzenzelivka village.

Similar to numerous communities throughout Ukraine, this village displays a memorial called an “Alley of Heroes” featuring photographs of deceased soldiers. Local residents gather there each morning to pay their respects with a quiet moment of remembrance.

Popriadukhina’s repeated relocations mirror Russia’s steady territorial gains throughout the war. Moscow now controls approximately one-fifth of Ukrainian territory following what Ukrainian officials describe as extremely costly attacks across battle-damaged plains that have completely destroyed entire communities.

“I don’t need their little Russia,” she said, employing a dismissive term Ukrainians use to mock their larger neighbor’s territorial ambitions.

Although Kyiv’s outnumbered and outgunned forces have prevented any major enemy breakthrough, the Norwegian Refugee Council has cautioned that internally displaced persons face increasing survival challenges as humanitarian assistance decreases and personal resources are exhausted.

“Many families are now forced to live in precarious conditions, often resorting to risky or unsustainable solutions to cope, including reducing their health or heating expenses,” the organization reported Thursday.

Popriadukhina mentioned being offered safe passage to Poland but responded: “But I said I won’t leave my country.”

She remains tormented by uncertainty regarding her two sons’ whereabouts.

One was receiving medical care at a Mariupol hospital when Russian forces captured the besieged city. The other followed his brother into military service before disappearing in 2023.

According to Kyiv, more than 70,000 Ukrainian military personnel and civilians remain unaccounted for in Vladimir Putin’s war, beyond the tens of thousands of Ukrainian troops confirmed killed.

“Honestly, if I could, I would tear him apart with my own hands, that Putin,” said Popriadukhina. “He brought suffering to so many people.”

From her current living room, she remembers discovering a young man outside her Vremivka residence who had been killed by explosive fragments earlier in the conflict. As a mother, the sight particularly devastated her.

“Please tell me,” she said. “How can you forgive this?”