In early March, two weeks into Russia’s assault on Ukraine, Steven Dyme watched a clip on NPR’s Twitter feed about a florist in Mykolaiv, Ukraine, who had just stocked her shop with fresh spring blooms when war broke out.
“When we bought the flower bulbs, no one thought the war would come,” Anzhela Kolesnik told the NPR reporter. “We knew there was fighting in Donbas, but we were still working. We have always worked, even during the COVID-19 pandemic.”
By the time the bulbs bloomed into flowers, Kolesnik was surrounded by shelling and explosions.
