Families in Balaklia were at risk throughout the Russian occupation and struggle for control of eastern Kharkiv Oblast.
One mother recalled that the shelling continued throughout the summer: "There was a period when the fighting went on every day, 24 hours a day."
"The whole house was shaking. All the ceilings in every room were cracked."
From the beginning of the invasion of Ukraine in February, shelling and penetrations by Russian troops and tanks led in the following weeks to the occupation of Balaklia.
Officials say thousands of the city's 27.000 residents have fled.
The rest did not have the means or the will to leave.
The BBC reported on Russian forces setting up torture chambers during the occupation as they tried to stifle support for Ukraine.
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In August, the occupying pro-Russian authorities offered an escape from the fighting for local children.
They said they would pay for the children to go to summer camp Bear bear ("Little Bear" in Russian) for three weeks in a Russian resort on the Black Sea in the city of Gelendzhik.
Parents had a choice - to keep their children at the front or to send them to the territory of the occupier.
More than 500 children from Balaklia and other parts of the region went on the trip in August.
Relief turns into nervousness
In September, Ukraine launched a counter-offensive and in a few days liberated most of the Kharkiv region, including Balaklia.
Ukraine's defense ministry released footage of residents celebrating, but the quick release made parents nervous.
Now that the border of the territory controlled by Russia has moved, how will the children be returned?
"We were worried. When the Ukrainian army entered the city, we realized that it would be difficult for our children to return to us," said Natalia Sonkina, whose twelve-year-old daughter is in the camp.
No Russian or Ukrainian officials have contacted them regarding their children.
And they felt the judgment of other people.
"It was impossible to get out," said Ala Kamenova, whose eleven-year-old daughter was in the camp.
"Some people sympathized with us, but many others were insulting, asking how it was possible to send a child to Russia."
Kameneva spoke only briefly to the BBC and refused to appear on camera.
She says it's because of the hostility she felt in the place.
Kharkiv Oblast is historically closely connected with Russia.
It borders Russia and has had generations of Russian immigration and cultural and political influence. Russian is widely spoken here.
The war heightened sensitivity to attachments.
The mayor of Balaklija sided with Russia when the occupation began. He is said to have now defected to Russia.
Oksana Bondar is currently acting mayor.
In the office, he is flipping through lists with the names of families who sent their children to Russia.
Children came from Balaklia, Izjum, Kupjansk and other towns and villages to Kharkiv.
Bondar says that at first she was shocked that parents "sent their own children."
"Those parents should have thought twice about sending their children to the aggressor's country," she says.
"What kind of mindset is it that you would think of sending children there. What kind of mother are you, if you send your children there, while war is raging, to a country that wants to destroy you? Personally, as a mother, I don't understand it."
The acting mayor says that many residents welcomed the occupier with open arms.
"There are many people who dreamed of a 'Russian peace' ('Russian world' - a completely Russian society and culture, as opposed to a Western-oriented civilization). They were collaborationists," says Bondar.
But he admits that the locals were exposed to strong Russian influence.
"The propaganda here was very good, that these children would rest in the camp," she said.
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'That's how I saved him'
Several parents complain that, as Russian forces were rapidly arriving, it was not possible to leave.
"We didn't get any help. There were no buses to leave the city when the Russians arrived," says Ana Lapina, mother of fourteen-year-old Saša, who is still in the camp.
And many could not even afford to escape.
Ana tearfully describes what they went through.
"My daughter spent half the summer in the basement," she says. "You wouldn't believe it."
She says her decision to send her son was the right one.
"Let them judge me. If they think I'm a collaborationist, a separatist, let them accuse me. But I lived in my hometown and I didn't want to go anywhere."
"I think by sending him during the fighting I saved the child."
Parents with modest incomes also do not have the means to return their children now.
Parents can talk to their children on the phone every day.
And the parents were told by the managers of the camp that only they can personally come and pick up their children.
It is not known exactly how many of the 500 children remained in Russia.
It is estimated that there are dozens, maybe more.
The director of the Medvejonok camp, Irina Možarova, did not want to speak when contacted by the BBC.
"Why would I say anything," she said.
"My children don't need it either. I don't want any information about these children to go public."
But Russian state media started sending messages themselves.
State media Rossiya 24 and Vesti TV showed children happy in class and playing on the coast of the Black Sea.
The news reported that the children did not want to leave.
All parents interviewed by the BBC say that their children are treated well.
Ana said that this is the first time her son has seen the sea and that he is enjoying it.
She is in constant contact with the camp administration.
"I tell them, 'Just don't teach him history,'" says Ana.
She believes that, since he lived through the war, Saša would not believe in any distortion of the history of Ukraine, Russia and their intersecting past.
Russian authorities have now moved the children to another camp, further north on the Black Sea coast, in Anapa.
That camp is more suitable for living in winter.
The governor of Krasnodar region - where Anapa is located - said that they will be able to live there indefinitely.
Parents who decide to return them will have to travel a long way.
It is impossible to travel on the official road between Ukraine and Russia, and parents have to travel thousands of kilometers, usually across the Baltic.
'They're trying to convince you to stay'
Russian authorities say they are trying to secure permanent residency for the parents there.
One mother, who wished to remain anonymous, spoke to the BBC from Poland, on her way back to Balaklia with her teenage son.
"The Russian authorities are trying to convince you to stay. They say: 'Anything can happen in Ukraine. Think about it'.
"They promise to provide boarding house accommodation, financial assistance, documentation and free food."
And some parents are ready for that.
One father - who also wished to remain anonymous - went to pick up his daughter.
They will remain in Russia, but, he said, only until Moscow reoccupies Balaklia.
"We're waiting for Russia to get to Balaklia," he says. "And then we'll be right back."
Acting mayor of Balaklia, Oksana Bandor, and several parents said a dozen families fled to Russia as soon as its army withdrew from Kharkiv.
That suspicion hinders the children's return to Balaklia.
Ana, the mother of fourteen-year-old Saša, did not want to turn to the police for help for fear of being accused of collaboration.
And there is a precedent.
Ukrainian special services carried out mass "filtration" of collaborators in the days after the liberation.
There were, however, very few arrests.
Of the 7.000 people investigated, only 16 ended up in custody, although there are reports of more arrests taking place in the meantime.
In the cool autumn air in Balaklia's central square, several hundred residents queue for food aid.
They need the support of the Ukrainian state to survive.
In parts of eastern Ukraine, the war has left families and communities on the brink of survival.
* Some names in this article have been changed to protect identity interlocutor
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