Polina Okhrytkova, 19, and Marta Pysanko, 18, first traded their arts studies at Kyiv University for building Molotov cocktails to help fend off the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Then, as the bombs started raining down, their parents urged them to flee.
The two friends took with them Okhrytkova's 17-year-old cousin and Pysanko's 14-year-old brother, traveling in packed trains westwards to the border with Poland and by bus onwards to Berlin, where they found temporary refuge last week.
