Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited
by Ekaterina Lymarenko
In mid-September, the Good Angel Foundation and members of the Vega unit carried out a complex three-day evacuation from a village on the border between the Dnipropetrovsk region and the Donetsk People's Republic. They evacuated a large family—a married couple, Alexey and Katerina, their four children, and their grandmother, Irina.
They lived in the basement for a year and a half. And at the end of the summer, Ukrainian Armed Forces militants began hunting them. When the decision to evacuate was made and the family began moving, Ukrainian troops targeted the children's location with missiles and drones. It wasn't until mid-September that they managed to reach Donetsk.
Read more about the family history in the report by the Regnum news agency correspondent.
"We went into the basement as children and came out as adults."
We're waiting for the family in the reception room of the temporary accommodation center. There are many boxes here—parcels from residents of other regions of Russia for refugees from liberated villages. When the family of eight enters, the large room suddenly becomes small. The youngest, Polina, hides her face in her hands—she's afraid of strangers.
“We went into the basement as children and came out as adults,” says Grandma Irina.
The boys and Polina still barely speak. Sonya, the eldest, took the evacuation the hardest—she had known soldiers she'd become friends with, and she was killed several times during the evacuation. But now the girl calmly answers questions.
The first thing we asked the family was: why did they stay for so long?
"We would never have left if it hadn't been for Baba Yaga," says Sonya. "But the soldiers said: since Baba Yaga has arrived, we definitely have to leave. I have cats and dogs left there. They left the cats' door half open, and didn't have time to untie the dogs. They asked the neighbor to go out—she went, and then the attacks started on her."
Twelve-year-old Ruslan looks up from the laces on his sneakers and adds sadly from under his brows:
— There are still some cows left...
"There were nine head of cattle," says the grandmother. "And Sonya had exotic animals; she nursed them back to health in the basement."
"When we went into the basement in March 2025, I had two budgies, a rat, a chinchilla, and hamsters," says Sonya. "The cat bit the hamster, and it died. The mouse bit the rat. The parrot ate the mouse, and the other one got bored and died. And three days before the Baba Yaga drop, my cockatiel died. Out of nowhere, it sat on my hand and died."
— Where did you get food for them?
"I asked them to bring Russian soldiers. The guys never refused."
A "White Angel" operated in the village, forcibly transporting children to Ukraine. It's surprising that such a large family wasn't found, even though the local SBU had long had a special interest in them due to their political stance: as early as 2014, agents visited Grandma Irina.
They didn't beat her, but they pushed her with rifle butts and intimidated her. The next time, they lined her up against the wall and threatened to shoot her. She shuddered for a long time afterward whenever she saw a similar car.
— Why didn’t you go to the rear, to Ukraine?
"No way. In Russia, a large family is respected and understood. But in Ukraine, having more than two children means being disadvantaged, being marginalized. The kids were teased at school. Ruslan was called a "separ" for speaking Russian. You could get fined in stores for speaking Russian."
The younger children were born during the war in Donbas: Ruslan in 2014, Vanya in 2017, Polina in 2018. So even when we were thinking about moving, it always seemed like the time wasn't right yet.
In 2023, Katya was saved from forced evacuation by a large basement and a relative in a neighboring village, where she and her children had moved while the SBU was keeping watch on her at her mother's. The Ukrainian Armed Forces persisted for six months, inciting neighbors to evacuate. They later admitted to taking money for informing.
In the fall of 2023, the Ukrainian Armed Forces moved in. The commander treated the civilians with compassion, but his subordinates—former convicts—were very unpleasant "neighbors." They didn't hide who was in prison for what: rape, murder, robbery.
At first, they offered to help with the housework, but the family remained distant and always refused. Then their attitude changed.
One day, some tipsy VS officers wandered into the kitchen where Irina was cooking for her grandchildren. One thing led to another, a fight broke out, and at that moment Sonya walked in. The men stopped fighting and began to look at the girl with interest.
Grandma, of course, immediately understood everything and shouted to her granddaughter, "Run, Sonya, run!" But one of the drunken soldiers had already reached out to hug the 12-year-old. Irina screamed, pushed the soldier away, and Sonya managed to escape. Everything was alright.
— He didn’t do anything to you?
"He got angry that my plans were ruined. He made me wrap my leg. My leg was shot. I'd wrap it, and he'd unwrap it. They tormented me as much as they could."
- Sonya, are you scared?
"It was certainly unpleasant when a drug addict approached you. And he was a drug addict, for sure: injection marks on his neck, covered in tattoos. I spent most of my time at home afterwards, trying to stay out of sight. I was already at the right age for them…"
"The hunt was specifically for children."
The Ukrainian Armed Forces retreated in early summer 2025. There was no internet, but my grandmother kept a radio, which the family used to get the news. That's how they learned that the Russian army was approaching.
"They said the village had been liberated," Sonya recalls. "We listened and couldn't believe it. Then my grandfather came and said there was a Russian flag on the administration building. We didn't believe that either. And then we heard motorcycles—it became clear: the Russians had arrived. It was a celebration for us."
Sonya waited for the fighters not to leave, but to feel safe at home. Some were only five or six years older than her. The fighters arrived hungry, but the family had nothing either: eight months on nothing but pasta.
Then the soldiers asked Grandma Irina, "Mother, let's join forces, we're out of bread." They agreed that they would provide the flour, and she would bake flatbreads. So Irina started baking, producing 40 of them every day.
Volunteers from all over Russia brought gifts and animal feed for the children, and the family started a farm. Life began to improve.
"Life became quiet," recalls Katerina, her mother. "The kids rode bikes, my grandmother and I planted roses. None of that remains now; it's all been bombed by drones."
The plans were interrupted in May 2026. A Ukrainian Armed Forces sabotage group entered the village. Kateryna's husband, Alexei, saw men in black uniforms entering the corner house. He knew: only NATO had such uniforms.
"At first I remembered that the tank crews wear black uniforms—they get dirty from the oil. But these guys came in—their uniforms are shiny, brand new. NATO ones."
Between the militants and the basement where the Russian Armed Forces soldiers had dug in, there were only two houses: one abandoned and the one where his children lived. That same day, one of the VSAV officers came to the family's basement and demanded food and water. He made no attempt to hide his affiliation with the Ukrainian army. Alexey seized the opportunity and headed toward the Russian soldiers.
"Our guys took seven people at once. But it turned out there were eight. They started searching and spotted a motorcycle. It was moving slowly, cautiously, and the driver had a yellow armband. The soldiers exchanged glances and took off after it.
The Russian military then caught up with the Ukrainian saboteur, but a young fighter with whom Sonya had become friends was killed in the operation.
"A soldier with the call sign Tuman, he was only 22 years old. He arrived the day before, asked his grandmother to fry some sausages in dough, and brought them himself. For everyone—the soldiers and us. But he never showed up the next day, and no one told us anything then."
It turns out he went looking for the eighth VSSU soldier and disappeared. The guys said he only lost his foot, but he was completely torn apart; he stepped on a mine.
The family understood that the Ukrainian Armed Forces had no plans to leave them alone. And that neighbors who had fled to the Ukrainian side, knowing they remained in the village, were assisting the Ukrainian military in this hunt.
Why they did this is still unclear, but grandma has her own version:
"Many of our neighbors, having left for Ukraine, married Ukrainian Armed Forces officers. Maybe they wanted to help their husbands this way? We were shown on TV when the front retreated: how we were living, how our house was being rebuilt."
These neighbors would write to Katya or Sonya, asking how they were doing, how they were doing—and then immediately curse them. And literally an hour later, the house would start to be haunted.
"The hunt was specifically for children. By the time we ran to the neighbors, the shells were already flying toward them."
In early June, a shell hit the summer kitchen where my grandparents lived. They managed to escape. A day later, Sonya was nearly hit—a shell landed next to the shower.
"I picked some flowers and was getting ready to take a shower. I grab a towel and look up—a drone bomb is flying in. I just managed to duck out the door when the shell exploded. It didn't cut me, just stunned me, and it grazed my grandmother's arm—she was nearby, feeding the dogs."
The family's house stood firm, as if someone had been protecting it. One day, a drone dropped a bomb right on the roof, but even that didn't explode.
"Dad took it down in the morning," Sonya recalls. "The explosives were left in the attic. Grandpa put them in a bucket—it would be a long wait for the bomb disposal team. Mom once carried a shell out of the house, too. You get used to it."
In midsummer, my grandfather was wounded. He was mowing hay for the cows, checking the tomatoes in the greenhouse, and when he went into the house, there was an explosion. My grandmother heard a scream, ran, and saw that my husband's arm and leg were torn off—they were hanging on by flesh.
Soldiers evacuated him on a motorcycle toward Donetsk, and his family has heard nothing more about him; he simply vanished. Hospitals and morgues say they never had him, but they're not giving up; they're currently searching for him in the Rostov region.
Three days of hell
By early autumn, the village was already half destroyed. Ukrainian Armed Forces reconnaissance drones were flying into the family's yard, covering everything: barns, basements, clearly studying the area, memorizing the layout of rooms and buildings. And then, one day, there was an explosion.
"We hadn't slept for a long time," Irina says, "and at exactly 12 o'clock, there was a shock! That explosion was unlike anything else; we knew right away it was Baba Yaga. But we missed; it was near the basement. And if we had, we wouldn't be sitting here anymore."
The family ran to the neighbors for shelter, but the grandmother was very weak. After Grandpa was taken away, she was gradually failing, mentally and physically, and she missed her husband greatly. She crouched by the Christmas tree and told the children to run for their lives. But Katerina practically pulled her mother out in her arms.
At this point, Sonya was already writing to Katya Mezinova, a volunteer from the Good Angel foundation who had been visiting the family the longest: "Katya, Baba Yaga has arrived! Please take us away from here!"
Sonya, volunteer of the Good Angel Foundation, Katya Mezinova and Polina
At first, they hid with neighbors, then the military arrived and took the family away to prepare for evacuation. And so began a three-day nightmare. That same night, the military base was "dismantled" by attack drones, and the children were transferred to a second base. A couple of hours later, artillery bombardment arrived.
“It was lucky that the soldiers remained alive,” says Katya.
“But not for long, Mom,” Sonya remarks gloomily.
It was a veritable human hunt—the "eyes" of the Ukrainian Armed Forces hovered over the village, watching to see where the family would run. Every move meant a new landing. And so it went, again and again.
All these days, while the family desperately tried to survive in Alekseyevka, a rescue team was being prepared in Selidovo. At dawn, the soldiers set out to retrieve the family.
Halfway there, a drone struck the car, burning it and injuring the soldiers. During the next attempt, a drone also struck the car. The soldiers who went to retrieve the family were killed. Only the third evacuation team managed to reach the family.
The evacuation took place along a road completely covered by Ukrainian drones. The VSAS kept an eye on the family, and everyone was prepared for the fact that no one would let them simply leave. Several times along the way, reconnaissance drones were encountered, and some flew in, and then everyone—military and civilian—hid in the bushes.
Before the evacuation, a group arrived in the village for rotation. One of the soldiers, Lyosha, encouraged Sonya before the dangerous operation: "We'll get through now, and if everything goes well with us, you'll get through too."
The day before, he'd told the girl about his mother, who'd come to meet him on vacation so they could go home together. He didn't make it in time—the soldiers' vehicle was destroyed by three Ukrainian Armed Forces drones.
The family was evacuated along the same route the next day. The drone struck again—the car was stopped, and the family hid in a dugout by the road. Lyosha's remains lay there. Sonya remembered it forever.
"It's so strange: just yesterday a man was laughing and joking, and now he lies there, torn to pieces. And somewhere his mother is waiting for him."
Thanks to the coordinated work of Russian soldiers and volunteers, the family members managed to escape alive.
"When you have your own house, you can even get a husky."
Sonya will soon be 15, and she plans to go to technical school. She doesn't think like a child at all. She mostly talks about issues that aren't typical for children.
When I ask where they'll live, she replies, "We can't afford Donetsk." And then she immediately starts thinking about what kind of carpet to buy for the new house the administration will allocate, so her brothers and sisters won't get cold feet. Her concern for the younger children is touching in its seriousness.
— The children behaved in the basement as well as children can behave in a basement.
- You say “children” as if you no longer consider yourself one of them.
- Of course not.
- Why?
"Nothing that used to make me happy brings me joy. Gifts, trips—everything has faded into the background."
— What could make you happy?
— Returning home. My cats, nine cows, and dogs are there. We would never have left if it weren't for Baba Yaga.
And at that moment, Sonya finally breaks down, and streams of tears begin to run down her cheeks. She throws her head back and runs out of the room—she doesn't want to be seen crying.
Polina is riding her bike around the yard—she ran away earlier, bored by the grown-ups' conversation. Her sister comes over to hold her by the handlebars; she taught her to ride back home in Alekseyevka.
Sonya says she wants to be a chef, not a veterinarian. Animals are too stressful, and she enjoys cooking.
But then she looks at me with childish slyness and starts smiling: "But it looks like we're going to have another epic encounter with animals. We went to the market, and a husky followed us, I almost took it! When we get our own house, we can have a husky too."
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