Sixty-five-year-old Halyna Popriadukhina has fled her home three times as Russian troops have moved deeper into eastern Ukraine during four years of war. Tired of running, she hopes Ukraine can somehow hold them back.
"I'm afraid there's nowhere else to escape," she said, the exhaustion apparent in her voice as she relates how one of her sons is missing in action, the other likely held by Russian forces.
Popriadukhina is among nearly 4 million people displaced within Ukraine, on top of more than 5 million who fled to Europe, as the war continues into its fifth year. Many of them fear they will not see their homes, or loved ones, again.
Control of her homeland of Donbas, comprised of Ukraine's industrialised eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, is at the heart of U.S.-backed peace talks to end the war.
Russia is demanding that Kyiv give up the remaining 20% of Donetsk that it has not been able to capture.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has refused, even though he said U.S. mediators privately advised that it would be enough to secure peace.
"We can't just withdraw," Zelenskyy a week ahead of the anniversary. "We have to understand that Donbas is a part of our independence ... It's not about the land. It's not only about territories: it's about people."
Popriadukhina said she had been milking cows with a friend when missiles began flying on 24 February 2022.
She reluctantly agreed to flee on her son's urging, leaving behind her home and livestock that had been critical to her survival.
"I tried to make it so that I had everything (in life)," said Popriadukhina, a former collective farmworker.
"I didn't take anything from there. Everything was lost."
After several months in western Ukraine, she returned to the Donetsk region in the summer of 2022, only to leave again in March 2025 as Russian forces pressed forward. When they lurched further westward into the Dnipropetrovsk region, she moved again.
Like countless other towns and villages across Ukraine, it features a so-called 'Alley of Heroes' with portraits of fallen soldiers. Residents stop by every morning to honour them in a moment of silence.
Popriadukhina's trajectory reflects Russia's advances over the years. It occupies about one-fifth of the country after what Ukraine says have been deeply costly assaults across a battle-scarred steppe that have wiped entire settlements off the map.
While Kyiv's outmanned and outgunned troops have held back any potential breakthrough, the Norwegian Refugee Council has warned that internal refugees are finding it harder to survive as aid dwindles and their savings run out.
"Many families are now forced to live in precarious conditions, often resorting to risky or unsustainable solutions to cope, including reducing their health or heating expenses," it said on Thursday.
Popriadukhina said she had once been offered passage to Poland. "But I said I won't leave my country," she said.
She is haunted by questions over the fate of her two sons.
One was being treated at a hospital in the besieged city of Mariupol when Russian forces swept in. The other enlisted in his son's footsteps, then went missing in 2023.
More than 70,000 Ukrainian soldiers and civilians remain missing in war, Kyiv says, in addition to the tens of thousands of Ukrainian troops killed.
Sitting in her living room, she recalls a moment earlier in the war when she found a young man outside her home in Vremivka who had been killed by shrapnel. As a mother, it hit her particularly hard.
"Please tell me," she said. "How can you forgive this?"
President Vladimir Putin agreed on Thursday to let European representatives join the next round of Ukraine peace t...
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European leaders gathered in Dublin on Thursday, 12 November, for the ninth European Political Community (EPC) summit, with security, defence and energy high on the agenda. Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev held talks focused on peace, trade and regional cooperation.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres delivered a stark warning at this year's COP31 summit, saying the climate crisis iss advancing faster than governments' efforts to contain it.
Iran will not let a single particle of its enriched nuclear material leave the country, and any new U.S. attack would be met with strikes on distant American bases, Iranian security chief Mohsen Rezaei has said.
Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang is stepping down amid reports linking him to a woman suspected by U.S. authorities of spying for China, throwing the future of the $4 trillion chipmaker into uncertainty.
Here's your AnewZ Daily Brief for 11 November. Today, we cover Russia-Ukraine peace talks, political tensions in Washington, strikes in Spain, espionage allegations involving Nvidia's CEO, and climate negotiations at COP31 in Türkiye.
President Vladimir Putin agreed on Thursday to let European representatives join the next round of Ukraine peace talks while the United States continues to work towards what could become the largest prisoner exchange of the Russia-Ukraine war.
Azerbaijan and the UK have pledged to strengthen defence, trade and education cooperation after signing a joint declaration elevating relations to a strategic level in Dublin, Ireland on Thursday (12 November).
More than 333,000 people have been forced from their homes in Yemen since the beginning of August as fighting has escalated, including more than 24,000 in the past week alone, the United Nations said on Thursday.
A court in Russia’s Baltic exclave of Kaliningrad has sentenced human rights lawyer Maria Bontsler to 12 years in prison on treason charges, after prosecutors accused her of passing sensitive information to Ukraine.
U.S. President Donald Trump has threatened to double tariffs on Mexico unless it stops more than a thousand migrants who are walking north towards the United States, warning that they will be denied entry.
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