ONE year ago Anastasia Hlazenko was giving birth to her daughter in a bombed-out maternity hospital as Russian troops blitzed her home city in Ukraine.
Now little Polina is celebrating her first birthday with a cuddly Paddington Bear given to her by The Sun as her mum declared: “She is a beacon of hope.”
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Anastasia added: “Polina shows that whatever Putin throws at us, Ukraine will never die.
“Polina adores her Paddington. Everyone knows about Paddington having tea with the Queen, and now Polina will also grow up loving Paddington.
“Thank you to The Sun for this present — and thank you to the UK and everyone else who continues to support Ukraine.
“With the world behind us, we will never be defeated.”
Anastasia, 25, and her husband Andriy, 30, were busy preparing their home in the eastern city of Izyum for their first child when war broke out last February.
Anastasia said: “My biggest concern was having a baby, not war, but on my way home from a routine hospital appointment I saw queues outside shops and banks.
“Then we heard that Russia had invaded.”
A short time later her contractions began and Andriy rushed her to hospital as columns of Russian troops approached the city.
Soon after they arrived, Polina’s heart rate dropped, so medics prepared for an emergency caesarean.
Renewed attack
Polina was born fit and healthy, weighing 6lb 15oz — but within hours mum and baby were taken to the hospital basement amid a Russian bombardment.
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Bank worker Anastasia said: “We heard a plane and saw a flash and there was an almighty bang.
“Windows were smashed and the lights went out. The staff yelled for us to go to the shelter.
“I had just had an operation so I couldn’t run and I couldn’t carry my baby.
“As we were going to the basement we heard gunfire and more explosions. It was terrifying.
“People were crying and screaming. We didn’t know where the bombs were falling or if they would hit the hospital.
“All the joy of being a new mother vanished.
“All I cared about was getting me and Polina home alive.”
With mobile phone signals down, Anastasia had no idea whether Andriy had survived the attack.
He said: “I felt useless because I should have been there to protect my wife and baby but there was nothing I could do.”
After three days he made it to the hospital where his wife and child were sheltering.
But after the hazardous journey home they had to head straight to their own basement to shelter once more from a renewed Russian assault.
Anastasia said: “Their artillery was in the city, the water and power kept going out and Polina’s bed was a cardboard box.
“We had to save fresh water for drinking, so to wash we collected ice from puddles and melted it.”
At times the fighting was so close to their home that their basement shook from explosions and a bullet slammed into one of their wooden window frames.
The living conditions became so grim they fled to her parents’ home — but reluctantly had to leave their dog Ralf behind.
The Russian bombardment intensified and 50 people died when an apartment block was destroyed.
Snipers were picking off civilians if they ventured out, and enemy jets flew overhead constantly.
The family then heard about an evacuation convoy of buses which was due to leave the city.
They stuffed clothes and important documents into a black bin bag and ventured outside to find the streets covered with huge shards of glass and piles of rubble.
They ran for a quarter of a mile to reach the convoy, fearing a sniper attack or renewed bombing from a jet every step of the way.
Anastasia said: “We ran so fast I could not breathe, and I held on to Polina so tightly.
“We did not know where the buses were going but we just hoped it would be somewhere safer.”
The family reached the convoy, and after two days of travelling by bus and train they reached the relative safety of Lviv in the west of Ukraine.
Nearly a year later they are now safe and well and living in the Polish town of Czeladz, an hour from Krakow, where Andriy has found a job at a car plant.
Their home city of Izyum — a key transport hub which made it a strategic target for Vladimir Putin — has been devastated and their own house badly damaged.
The Russians took control of the city shortly after the family fled but Ukrainian forces retook it in September.
Around 80 per cent of the infrastructure has been destroyed, 1,000 people were killed and mass graves have been discovered.
But the couple refuse to give up on their dream of one day returning.
More than anything they want to be reunited with three-year-old pet Ralf.
Incredibly he is still alive, surviving each day on food given to him by Ukrainian soldiers, and guarding the wrecked family home, waiting for his family to return.
Anastasia said: “Some people who stayed in the city checked our house for us recently and while they were there Ralf appeared.
“It was amazing to hear he is alive and well.
“We feel so guilty for leaving him but we know that Ukraine will win this war and when that happens, we hope we can go home and be with Ralf again.”
