Inna Gordienko is originally from Kyiv and now works as head of communications at the Association of Ukrainian Organizations in Estonia. Gordienko was in Ukraine in February 2022, when Russia's full-scale of her country invasion began. She told ERR News she has "heavy memories" of those days.

"Right until the last moment, I did not believe that a full-scale war would begin," Gordienko says. "For the previous two months, everyone around me had been talking about it, and there was an atmosphere of depression, anxiety, and a foreboding – some kind of inevitability of tragedy in the air," she recalls.

"But I pushed aside any bad thoughts and did not pack my 'anxiety suitcase.'"

However, on February 23, as tensions in Kyiv continued to rise, Gordienko's friends convinced her to leave the Ukrainian capital and head to the west of the country. "Just to spend a couple of weeks there," until things calmed down, she says.

It was while she traveled to Lviv that everything changed. "We were caught by war," Gordienko says.

At first, Gordienko was "in shock and did not know what to do next," she tells me. It soon became clear that she would have to change her plans. "There was no point in going to Lviv," she says. "We had to move to the border."

Late in the evening of February 24, 2022, as the huge scale of Russia's attack on Ukraine became clear to the world, Gordienko crossed the Ukrainian border into neighboring Poland. "A week later I decided to go to Estonia," she says.

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After arriving in Estonia, Gordienko spent the first two months trying to make sense of what was unfolding back in Ukraine.  

"I constantly thought that in a couple of days the war would end, and I would go back to Ukraine," she says. "But unfortunately, that didn't happen and over time I realized that I needed to start a new life and adapt to a new country."

Gordienko soon began writing a regular blog for Estonian media outlet Delfi, detailing the lives of Ukrainian refugees, who had moved here and shedding light on the experiences they were all going through.

"For about a year this activity kept me afloat," she says. "My reflections in these blogs, interviews with my compatriots, and the understanding that I was not alone in such a situation helped me get through that first terrible year."

By the end of 2022, Gordienko had joined the Association of Ukrainian Organizations in Estonia. As part of the association, she began channeling her efforts into supporting refugees from Ukraine even more directly.

From establishing a twice-monthly Ukrainian Film Club in Tallinn to putting on a festival in honor of Ukraine's national costume, culture has always been at the heart of the association's approach to helping Ukrainians integrate into Estonian society. In November 2023, they even launched "Druzi," Estonia's first ever Ukrainian-language radio station.

"This is my voluntary contribution, and I am still doing it," Gordienko says of her role at the association. "It's very important for Ukrainians abroad to stick together," she adds, highlighting the need for the Ukrainian community to preserve their culture, language, and identity while abroad.

"I can say that now I am fulfilling my mission here," Gordienko tells me. However, she still dreams all the time about returning to Ukraine. When she gets there, she wants to put all the knowledge and experience she has gained in Estonia to good use, by implementing similar projects in her homeland.

"I also miss traveling around Ukraine," she says, adding that the Black Sea city of Odesa, along with Ukraine's cultural capital Lviv, are two of the places she loved visiting the most.

"But most of all I miss my friends and the streets of my native Kyiv," Gordienko says. In particular, "the smell of Kyiv in spring and the lilacs outside my window in Podil (the city's historic neighborhood where Gordienko's apartment is – ed.) I miss that time of carefree and busy life, which, unfortunately, will never return."

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Despite everything, Gordienko remains an "unsurpassed optimist" and is still confident her country can achieve victory in the war.

"Of course, the situation now does not look very encouraging, and we are looking with great sadness at all the political discourses taking place around the negotiations on the ceasefire and peace agreements with Russia," she says.

"But I hope common sense will prevail and that our allies and partners, among whom Estonia plays an important role, will not let Ukraine fall and lose."

"If Ukraine does not win, evil in the form of Putin and his regime will move further throughout Europe," Gordienko says, adding that Russia has to be held accountable for its actions by the International Criminal Court (ICC). "All international and European democratic institutions must now unite to stop this evil and do everything possible to ensure that Russia is punished," she says.

"But I believe we will rebuild and restore everything. There will be a beautiful Ukraine, which people from all over the world will dream of coming to."

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Yuliia Kopytsiak is a Master's student at the University of Tartu. She too was in Ukraine when Russia launched its full-on attack. Kopytsiak told ERR News, that when she thinks about the events of February 24, 2022, the first thing that comes to mind is pain – "the pain of loss, of fear, of the life I once knew in my beloved Kyiv disappearing in an instant."

"I remember my sister's call at 5 a.m.," Kopytsiak tells me. "It's started… rockets just flew over us." And then, my first explosion nearby. In that moment, disbelief takes over – 'How did the world allow this? But surely, by the end of the day, world leaders will intervene, and Russia will be forced to retreat. It's the 21st century, after all!'"

It was only then, Kopytsiak says, that the reality set in.

"The world was watching while we were fighting, and I was consumed with questions: What can I do? How can I help? How do I resist?"

Kopytsiak was certainly not the only one in Ukraine who had those kinds of thoughts. All around her, friends, family members and classmates were signing up to join Ukraine's territorial defense. "Ordinary civilians were taking up arms for the first time," she says. "Others, myself included, were helping with food, clothing, medical supplies and so on."

She describes what emerged in those days as "an unparalleled volunteer movement; a whole nation united in the face of invasion – we found solidarity in survival. Everyone became my compatriot, and I became theirs."

***

Kopytsiak is from a small town in Bucha Raion, just outside Kyiv. She points out that her family home is not in the city of Bucha itself, where horrific war crimes were committed against Ukrainian civilians in the opening months of the invasion. But they were not far away, and soon also found themselves on the brink of Russian occupation.

"We had a choice: flee or stand our ground," Kopytsiak says. "So, we chose to stay and fight."

Fearing the worst, they did whatever they could to prepare to defend their home from the advancing Russian soldiers – "hiding anything that could be used as a weapon, preparing Molotov cocktails, even poison," she tells me.

"It was surreal and terrifying, yet also empowering," she continues. "This was our country, our home, and we would not welcome invaders with anything but resistance."

March 2022 is a month Kopytsiak says she wishes she could forget. "But it lives in my mind every day."

"March was pain, hunger, destruction, and informational isolation," she tells me. "It was watching missiles hit the house next door. It was information blackouts, knowing nothing, feeling isolated. It was despair at the inhumanity, at the atrocities being committed by the Russians around us."

But March also brought her "a moment of absolute clarity," she says.

"Ukraine and Russia were never the same, never 'brotherly nations,'" Kopytsiak explains. "We (Ukrainians) were fighting not just for survival, but for something much greater. For freedom. For dignity. For democracy. For the right to live side by side with our European friends," she says.

"Three years later, that fight continues. And so do we."

***

For Kopytsiak, like millions of other Ukrainians, the events of February and March 2022 changed her life forever.

Those months "reshaped my worldview, my priorities, my entire sense of purpose," she says. "I realized that I had to do my best to ensure that the next generations of Ukrainians grow up in a free, peaceful, and prosperous Ukraine."

In the three years since, Kopytsiak has been working toward a Master's degree in politics and governance at the University of Tartu.

"I work every day to reach a better future," she tells me. "Because real change happens when each of us does everything in our power for a common goal. And as long as we believe in that, we can have faith in a peaceful and happy future."

Today, Kopytsiak describes Estonia as her "second home," and a place that "has given me safety, community, and hope."

"Estonia stands with Ukraine, Ukraine stands with Estonia, and we stand together for as long as it takes," she says. "I have been met here with kindness, sincerity, and a deep sense of solidarity. For that, I am endlessly grateful."

As the full-scale war heads into a fourth year, and recent political events threaten to tilt the balance away from Ukraine, Kopytsiak remains as proud and determined to resist Russian aggression as she did on day one.

"I no longer believe that war in Europe is impossible in the 21st century," Kopytsiak tells me. "But we will win," she adds. "We must. Because we are fighting for life itself."

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