A former Ukrainian TV host has made a new life for herself working in a Belfast creche after fleeing the warzone.
Kateryna Fuglevych had been working as a journalist and presenter with Odesa Live when the Russian invasion began.
When the war began, Kateryna travelled to join her parents in the Russian controlled city of Kherson where she expected to spend a few days before ending up living in her parents basement for two months.
Read more: Co Antrim student tells of her fears for family members in war-torn Ukraine
Ms Fuglevych told the BBC that they barely slept due to the sound of the bombs and missiles falling around them.
"Thank God my grandfather built that basement," she said.
"But even when we were down there we could hear the bombs, the missiles - we barely slept.
"We just could not believe that this could happen, that the war would come to our land. But I had to be with my family.
"We would swap medicine and food with neighbours so everyone could survive."
After two months, Kateryna decided to return to Odesa with the help of a friend and said that she had 15 minutes to pack everything and leave her home town.
"I had 15 minutes to pack everything, my whole life, in my car and leave," she said.
"The roads were gone - they had been destroyed - so we had to follow people who knew the way through fields.
"It was eight hours, no water because I forgot water, and it was very scary.
"I was worried that Russians would recognise me as a journalist when I hit a checkpoint.
"When I first saw a Ukrainian soldier, I hugged him."
While she eventually made it back to Odesa, when the bombing started there, she decided to leave Ukraine by driving to Hungary, then on to France before taking the ferry to Dover and eventually arriving in Belfast.
Kateryna told the BBC that her new life in Northern Ireland is very different to that when she was a journalist.
"I was speaking to politicians and celebrities and now I work with children, but it's great.
"Belfast is amazing because of the people who are so kind and so pleasant when I'm talking about my parents, about my life.
"I know in Belfast in the past there were not such easy times so they feel in their soul how it is to try to live for Ukrainians.
"For me it's really very nice that I am here in Northern Ireland and I have a possibility to start a new life in Belfast."
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