TWO years after Russia invaded her country and forced her and her son Danylo to flee, Helena Vyshnevska is still burdened by a feeling she can’t shake off - guilt.
“A lot of Ukrainians (who fled the war) have feelings of guilt,” she said. “We are safe here, but our friends, our parents and other people who stayed in Ukraine are not safe.”
She vividly remembers that awful morning on February 24 two years ago when the Russians invaded.
She and her son, then just 12, were woken at 4am in their Kyiv flat by a strange noise. At first they thought it was fireworks. Then she realised it was bombs.
There had been rumours that the Russians might attack. But, like other Ukrainians, she couldn’t believe it.
Then her ex-husband rang to confirm the worst – the Russians had attacked.
At a stroke, she says, she and her son – and countless other Ukrainian families – lost everything. “In one day, we lost our families, our friends, our jobs, our normal lives.”
She and Danylo remained in their Kyiv flat for two weeks. But the attacks continued – and she decided they had to leave.
The elderly father of one of her friends, a retired ambulance driver in his seventies named Vyctor, offered to drive them out of the city into western Ukraine.
It was hugely dangerous – the Russians had driven deep into Ukrainian territory, and people were dying on the roads.
“It was very terrible,” Helena said. “A lot of bodies were just lying on the road. We didn’t know if we would be alive at any moment.”
Vyctor, who drove them to safety, died not long afterwards of a heart attack. She will never forget him, Helena said. “He was a very heroic man.”
For several months, she and Danylo moved from place to place in western Ukraine, staying with family or friends.
Eventually, they were able to come to the UK under the Homes for Ukraine scheme. They now live in Harrogate, where Helena – an artist in her own country – has a job as a waitress.
But, desperate to do something to raise awareness about what is happening in her own country, she has now put on an exhibition of powerful war paintings at the Spurriergate centre in York.
It is running today until 2.30pm, then will be back again on Tuesday and Wednesday next week, from 10.30am-2.30pm.
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The paintings, she says, express her feelings about the war, her gratitude to the British people – and her sense of uncertainty.
She has two brother who are fighting in the war back home, she says. “I worry about them all the time.”
She doesn’t know what the future holds – for her, for Danylo, or for her country. “I don’t know what will be the future. I cannot see more than two weeks ahead.”
Daria Furmanova, who helped Helena put on the exhibition, is herself a Ukrainian who fled to the UK two years ago with her daughter Alisa, now 9.
After staying with a host family in York for eight months, the pair now rent a flat in the city, and Alisa goes to a local school.
But the trauma of what happened remains, Daria said.
Nothing feels safe any more, the 40-year-old said. Bonfire night, with its fireworks, as a real trial. “It’s worse when you can’t see them, only hear them.”
She has found a job in York – but still reels with shock at the way their lives were destroyed.
“It is difficult to believe what happened,” she said.
She, too, is desperate to raise awareness of what is happening in her own country.
The bombs are falling every day, she said – and innocent people are dying.
Ukraine is not only fighting for itself, she says – it is defending Europe. And it needs support.
“European countries still don’t realise the level of danger from Russia,” she said. “Only together we can win.”
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