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In Ukraine, special correspondents from France Télévisions met a woman 73 years old who performed an act of bravery. Throughout the Russian occupation of her town near Izium, she hid a Ukrainian soldier in her basement.
It is an extraordinary gesture of solidarity. For five months, Katarina hid Mikaelo, a Ukrainian soldier, in her basement. When she met him, he was lying in her garden, unconscious and bleeding. At that time, she was still unaware of the ordeal experienced by this man. Captured by the Russians, he was tortured for 10 days. “They used huge iron bars, I had bruises and wounds all over my body.” he remembers. He owes his survival to a Russian officer, who pretended to execute him on a vacant lot.
It is then that Mikaelo crawls to Katarina’s house, near Izioum (Ukraine). Throughout the Russian occupation, she cared for and fed him. If the Russians had found out, she would have been killed on the spot. “I was on the razor’s edge, I was in great danger hiding it. All these months I’ve been living in terror“, she explains. One day, Russian soldiers entered Katarina’s garden, to steal chickens and wine. They did not know what was happening behind closed doors in this house. Today, Katarina, 73, considers Mikaelo as her own son.