Maeve Higgins: Grateful to have sanctuary in US but her heart still beats for Ukraine

Liudmyla Holovko and her daughter, Nicole. Picture: courtesy of Liudmyla Holovko

‘IT WAS one day, just a few seconds, on February 24, when President Zelenskyy said a war would change all our lives.” Liudmyla Holovko recalls the fateful day one year ago when Russia invaded Ukraine. In March 2022, Liudmyla took her then four-year-old daughter, Nicole, leaving her husband, brother, and parents in the family’s hometown of Lviv, and fled across the border to Poland.

In April, a Russian missile attack on Lviv killed at least seven civilians, prompting the city’s mayor to tell the BBC, “Everyone is unsafe”.