‘I had no idea I’d never go back’: Mariupol survivors, a year on

People leaving from Mariupol train station to Kyiv last year [File: Emre Caylak/Al Jazeera]

It was a striking picture.

Valentyna Konstantinovska, then 79, laid out on the floor wearing a lemon-yellow coat, learning to aim a mock assault rifle at a civilian weapons training in Ukraine’s southeastern port city of Mariupol.