Published on Mamamia
March 3, 2022
“When is it going to end?”
It was the exasperated question that Victoria Stepanenko’s mother, Dr. Natalia Stepanenko, sobbed from a Chernihiv hospital, in northern Ukraine.
Victoria, 23, speaks to her parents several times each day from her home in Sydney – although the calls usually only last a minute or two, “because they have to help someone, or hide somewhere.”
But a few days ago, their call got disconnected. A couple minutes later when Victoria phoned again, she could hear the sirens going off in the city. And then a nearby explosion.
“My heart broke down,” she tells Mamamia.