“I’m Polina and I’m from Ukraine. I’m 19. I’m fromDonetsk in eastern Ukraine, but when war started there in 2014 I had to flee, when I was 12. That was the first time I heard the sound of bombing. And I’ve never been back since then to Donetsk,where my happy childhood ended in May 2014. The war separated my life into before and after. When the “after” turned into a new home in Kyiv, a new school, new friends, a new normal life, it was a real horror to get a flashback and be woken again by the sound of bombing. After more than eight years. I hate the sense of fear and being un-
protected. I will never understand this war... I’ve left my home again. War is the most terrible thing in the world...”


Polina Budagovska, 19, studies architecture at the Kyiv National University of Construction and Architecture. Originally from the city of Donetsk in eastern Ukraine, she started drawing as a child and would take art classes after school. In 2014, when war broke out between Russian-backed separatists and Ukrainian forces, Polina and her family were forced to flee Donetsk. They eventually relocated to the capital Kyiv where Polina continued to draw, mostly portraits and nature. When Russia invaded Ukraine on February 24, Polina’s family was displaced for the second time and she decided to capture her feelings and experiences through drawings made on an iPad. Polina plans to use her visual art skills in the future as an architect and she hopes to build new homes for Ukrainians when the war is over.