Luda Vigilio should be celebrating a special moment with her family – being pregnant. She says the war in Ukraine has taken the excitement away. 

Instead, she is filled with frustration, worry and helplessness as her mother and 90-year-old grandmother take cover in the eastern Ukrainian city of Sumy.  

“My biggest fear is I’ll never see my family again,” says Vigilio. 

While trying to describe what her mother and grandmother are going through, she says they were told to hide in the bathroom or hallway from bomb blasts.

Vigilio’s grandmother survived the horrors of World War II. The current Russian invasion of Ukraine is bringing back that nightmare.   

“She tells so many stories of Germans just marching through their town,” says Vigilio. “Her sister was actually taken as a worker and they never saw her again. This is a way of PTSD coming back.” 

It isn’t just Vigilio’s mother and grandmother in Ukraine. Friends from her wedding are also there. She checks in on them regularly as well. 

Despite the extreme violence happening in Ukraine, Vigilio still hangs onto hope. 

“They want to make it through. They want to win,” says Vigilio. “We have to support them.”