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War & peace

30 March 2023

5 min read

After the anniversary

Ukrainian musician Lyuba Reznichenko reflects on the war’s anniversary and on the aid given in so many ways. Interview by Peter Robertson.

Peter Robertson

Peter Robertson is Christian Aid's senior humanitarian journalist.

A woman sits on a chair in a field holding a large stringed musical instrument.

Lyuba Reznichenko playing her bandura.

Christian Aid.

Christian Aid first met Lyuba Reznichenko in July 2022 after the then-25-year-old had fled her home, and her studies at the music academy in Dnipro, for a remote village in western Ukraine. She was sharing a bungalow with three families, including a friend from her church in Dnipro.

Her parents, brother and three sisters were still in Kherson, under Russian occupation - they were safe but Lyuba could not get to them. She spoke about her worries and said she missed playing music but was enjoying the nature around her.

I caught up with Lyuba, in Lviv, via a Zoom interview. She updated us on the liberation of Kherson but explained her parents were under constant shelling from the Russians.

Lyuba plays the bandura – the national instrument of Ukraine. Her father advised her to take her bandura with her when she escaped, so if she ended up with nothing, she could still busk. She has since staged performances in Lviv city centre to raise people’s spirits and talked about how emotional people get: “They all want peace and victory,” she said.

She also spoke about her faith, the work she has been doing helping refugees and the support she received from Christian Aid’s partner, Hungarian Interchurch Aid.

Lyuba said when she looks back at the past year, she gets frustrated:

“It sometimes feels like I am ready to succumb to all that. But I understand that we cannot do that. We must hope, we must pray. I do believe that God will help us and victory will be ours.”

What was your life like before the war?

I was studying at the Music Academy in Dnipro. Before that, I went to see my parents in Kherson during the New Year holidays… I was planning to go visit them again in March, but 24 Feb changed everything. I was in Dnipro and my entire family was in Kherson.

What did you feel when you learnt about the Russian invasion on 24 Feb?

Like the majority of Ukrainians, I started getting phone calls at 4am from my friends who were saying: “get up, the war has started.” It was horrible, I was very scared as we heard the first air raids and explosions. Horror is the only thing I remember about that day.

What happened next?

I stayed in Dnipro until mid-March. To avoid plunging into panic and depression and as a believer, I will be honest with you, I prayed a lot. I do believe that God supports, protects and helps. The church I used to go to opened a centre for the first wave of refugees from Kharkiv and Zaporizhzhya regions. As my own family was in the area under occupation and I could not do anything to help them, I decided to start helping those refugees.

Then I learnt of an opportunity to evacuate to western Ukraine in March, I grabbed it. This is how I ended up in Transcarpathian Region.

What’s your experience of interaction with Christian Aid?

I stayed with a very kind and hospitable family in a village there. They have many children and helped other refugees and I helped them every time I could. Then, in May I learnt of the Hungarian charity HIA, Christian Aid partner, and registered with them…

They supported me financially. As a student, I did not have any means. I could not ask my parents for helps as they were living under occupation and banks did not work there…

How did you stay in touch with your family?

It was a very difficult situation. There have been protracted periods, like a week, two weeks and a half, when I could not get in touch with them as there was no phone connection, no internet in Kherson. I was horrified by the news I read: a strike here, an explosion there. I was thinking about my family all the time.

But there were moments when I could reach them on a chat app. The connection was bad, but still, and when you hear the voice of your nearest and dearest, that’s a great relief…

How is your family now?

Kherson was liberated on 11 November… But then the situation only deteriorated because the Russians were shelling it from the right bank almost non-stop. My parents tell me that it is going on almost without interruptions.

When did you move to Lviv and return to Dnipro?

At the end of August, I moved to Lviv where I met other believers who were actively involved in charity work. I worked with them, too. We staged performances in the city centre. I played bandura and sang patriotic songs to raise people’s morale.

Then I returned to Dnipro to complete my studies… I continued cooperation with this organisation there… We were quite active there, too. We toured the region with performances, I played bandura a lot.

What is people’s reaction to your performances?

The reaction is abundant. People do react to my songs. They cry, too. They become very emotional. They all want peace and victory.

What do you feel about the first anniversary of the war?

It is all very difficult. When it all started, there was hope that it would end in a week or two. And then a month passed, another… Still there was hope that it will just come to an end.

When I look back at the year, I just become frustrated. It sometimes feels like I am ready to succumb to all that. But I understand that we cannot do that. We must hope, we must pray. I do believe that God will help us and victory will be ours.

What do you think about the UK charity organisations helping Ukrainians?

First, I want to thank you from the bottom of heart for supporting us all this time. This is an awful situation and many Ukrainians need help. Especially those living in eastern Ukraine, in hot spots, which have seen fierce fighting, the newly liberated territories where people have no place to live, where they lost loved one… Those people need more support.

I would like to say that more aid is directed there. Still, it is impossible to live there. It is not safe at all because of the non-stop raids and explosions. Those people who evacuated to the west of Ukraine need help. But they sometimes cannot get it because all the attention is focused on the east.

So if you can it would be good to distribute all the assistance among those staying in the east and those who moved here, to the west.

How toy blocks are building trust, love and understanding

There’s a beautiful kind of hospitality, and this is it. Belle Tindall reflects on her visit to Cardiff’s Growbaby hub.

Belle Tindall

Belle is the staff writer at Seen & Unseen.

A baby plays with wooden toys on a carpert.

Photo by Troy T on Unsplash.

The leftovers were being gathered up, chairs being put back in their place, and happy looking people were dispersing. The last child there, his mum helping to wrap things up in the kitchen, was clinging onto a toy that I, in my imagination, like to think he makes a B-line for every time he spots it. It was an ordinary scene, but there was something undeniably extraordinary underpinning it.

Although it’s hard to articulate with words (which is admittedly not ideal when the objective of the visit was to write about it), it was immediately clear to me, I had walked right into the aftermath of something truly special. I sat down with Joey and Sarah, two of the Growbaby team, to figure out what it was.

Growbaby is an international children’s supply charity, providing clothing, equipment and everyday essentials for children up to five years old. Launched in 2003 and rooted in a local Vineyard church in Kingston Upon Thames, there are now multiple Growbaby hubs, one of which just happens to be at the end of my road in Cardiff. What started as a cupboard crammed with donated supplies is now a source of wholistic support for over one hundred families.

As requests flow into Growbaby HQ, packages are lovingly compiled and then freely given. These packages are put together on a case-by-case basis and can include anything from nappies to pushchairs, clothes to cots, formula to toys. Such support doesn’t tend to be offered from a distance, on the contrary, every Friday morning families (mothers and little ones, primarily) are welcomed to ‘stay and play’, and to subsequently receive the kind of support that can’t be handed over via a package. The aftermath of one of these events was the context for my short but ever so sweet visit.

The ways in which Joey and Sarah find themselves serving these families is constantly bursting the banks of their expectations.

The depth of relationship that has naturally built through their time together, with every Friday morning acting as a building block of trust, has meant that the ways in which Joey and Sarah find themselves serving these families is constantly bursting the banks of their expectations. The team have assisted in getting families set up with child credits and social services support, frequently acted as translators, ferried families to A&E, thrown baby showers, booked GP appointments, been birth partners, and even sought out affordable kitchen flooring on Facebook Marketplace.

Working for the well-being of these families has also involved appealing to the Red Cross to try and re-unite a Sudanese mother with her twelve-year-old son who has been unable to get out of the war-torn country. With families from Syria, Sudan, Iran, Iraq and Somalia (to name but a few), many of whom have found themselves in Cardiff as refugees, Growbaby is far more than a resource centre, it is a beautifully diverse community, the most understanding of support networks, a means of building a home away from home.

When Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine last year, the Growbaby team’s minds immediately went to the Russian women within their community, those who had brought their families to the UK in search of political asylum. These women had built a home for themselves and their children here, and yet, the news of the Russian offensive was likely to make them feel as vulnerable as the day they arrived. So, the team gave each of these women a card; a small but mighty gesture that let these women know that they were seen, safe, understood and loved in the place that they now called home.

The team here are also hosting these families’ trauma and their fears, they’re holding space for their joys and their victories.

I was struck by the fact that whole lives have been enhanced in this room; friendships have been forged, babies have been celebrated, all kinds of needs have been provided for, and women who came to Growbaby for help are now the volunteers who offer it. And these stories are a mere scratching of a powerful surface, the beaming smiles on both Joey and Sarah’s faces tell a thousand more. The impact that these women have had could never be adequately squeezed into an article (again, not ideal when an article is the objective).

Stepping foot into the room that Friday morning was stepping foot into the most tangible sense hospitality one could imagine. Of course, there are the obvious, and utterly essential ways, that these families are being hosted – through resources, supplies and practical support. But the team here are also hosting these families’ trauma and their fears, they’re holding space for their joys and their victories. Each person that walks through the door of Cardiff’s Growbaby are finding a community who will welcome and host the whole of them, who will weep with them when they’re weeping, and celebrate with them when they’re celebrating.

It’s a beautiful thing.

We could be forgiven for thinking that this kind of no-strings-attached hospitality is a myth. If it ever did exist, it’s bygone, and therefore dwells only in the realms of nostalgia. So, counter-cultural is it, that we’d be suspicious if ever we were to stumble upon rumours of it.

Well, no suspicion necessary here. It truly does exist; you can take my word for it. And I can’t imagine people more in need of it than parents, the guardians and nurturers of little lives.

If you are in need of the kind of support that Growbaby can offer, you can see if there’s a Grow Baby near you by using its directory .