How one Ukrainian family finds refuge in Southern Oregon for their children’s future

Everything changed for Olena Zhyvotovska and her husband, Misha Zhyvotovskyi, on Feb. 24, 2022, when Russia began an all-out assault on the southeastern port city of Mariupol, where they lived. Olena was getting ready to take her two kids, Kostia and Andrew, to school that day.

“I got a message from the teacher that said, ‘Don’t worry, everything will be good, just maybe for safety, stay at home,’” she said at her new home in Ashland, a city of more than 21,000 residents situated in southwestern Oregon’s Rogue Valley region.

Soon, Olena and Misha could hear bombs falling all around them.

“There were terrible sounds, it was 24 hours a day,” said Olena. “And we stayed there for 24 days, we lived there without light, without internet, without water, without food, without everything — people just survived.”