To Defenders of Freedom

Eleventh-grader Anna returned home to the capital from a village in the Kyiv region to cook in a field kitchen

17-year-old Anna Kushnirenko was about to finish school and planned to enter the Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv to study journalism. When the full-scale invasion began on February 24, her mother sent the girl to her aunt’s village in Hlibivka. A total of 15 family members lived in the aunt’s house. When the occupiers partially withdrew from the village on the 16th day of the great war, the family decided to go to the capital. They split up into several cars, some of which were fired upon by the occupiers — yes, not all the passengers survived.

After this experience, the girl and her mother are at home in Kyiv, where they volunteer in a field kitchen: “It makes it easier for me to endure the pain. I feed people, so at least I save them from starvation. And it is much easier to live with these thoughts!”

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