When the full-scale invasion began, Kira was 11 years old and living in Mariupol with her father, her only guardian after her mother passed away in infancy. One day, a Russian airstrike changed everything — Kira witnessed her father's death. Wounded while trying to flee the destroyed city, she was taken by occupying forces to a hospital in Donetsk. Alone and in pain, she managed to find a phone and call her grandfather, telling him what had happened and begging him to come home. At the last moment, just before she was to be placed for adoption in Russia, her grandfather crossed dangerous checkpoints and brought her back to Ukraine.