Andriy Yarmolenko says football has provided a distraction from "going crazy" as he deals with the ongoing war in Ukraine.
The 32-year-old was given compassionate leave by West Ham and manager David Moyes following Russia's invasion of his homeland in February.
Yarmolenko's wife and children are now safely back in London having fled via Poland and the Ukraine international has returned to playing with West Ham, scoring emotional goals - against Aston Villa and Sevilla - in his first two games back.
"David Moyes told me I could choose to train or not and that I had to do everything I could to ensure the safety of my family," Yarmolenko told Ukrainian YouTube channel Football 1/2/3.
"I needed to remain professional so I returned. I was just going crazy and you need to be distracted. But even now, I don’t know what the other results are. It is just training ends and then the phone calls home.
"It is honestly scary to talk about it. We have to help each other. If we do not then no one will.
"I am sure we will not be beaten by any country. No one will ever be able to break our spirit."
Yarmolenko's family are now safe but in the early days of the conflict they remained in Ukraine and were in the capital Kyiv, leaving the forward feeling helpless back in London.
"When it all started, on February 24, I arrived at training and couldn’t even talk," said Yarmolenko. "I had tears flowing. I asked the coach to let me go home.
"I didn’t believe this could happen. I sent my family to Kyiv because my child had to have a doctor’s appointment.
"Can you imagine what I was like when it started the next morning? I just wanted to run and hit my head against a wall. What a fool I was sending my family to Kyiv and I am sitting in London."
Yarmolenko, who was born in the Russian city of St. Petersburg but raised in Chernihiv, Ukraine, still has extended family back home.
"All the relatives are alive and well," he said. "My cousins help keep in touch with uncles, aunts. The ones there, where there is constant shelling going on, they are in bomb shelters, hiding in basements."
