Veronika Krasevich, an 11-year-old girl from Bordodjanka, crouched next to the rubble near her house feeding two cats.
Almost a year earlier, Russian shells fell on her family's apartment on the ninth floor of a building in this city in northern Ukraine, and Veronika and her loved ones ended up in the basement.
As soon as it was safe, she went out to look for her cat Mashik.
"I wanted to feed him, and then I saw all the other cats here. I felt sorry for them," Veronika told Reuters.
And so began her mission to care for pets who, just like her, lost their homes in the chaos of war.
"I look for stray cats to make sure they have food. I even know where they live," says Veronika, wearing a woolen hat decorated with a cat's muzzle and whiskers.
In the end, she found Mashik, but he was no longer tame, he went wild like most cats.
"We wanted to take him home, but it was no longer possible... He didn't want to go with us," she says.
Now Masik is one of the regulars at her feeding sessions, pouncing when she arrives and then retreating to his new home away from the ruined playground at the foot of a collapsed block of flats.
"The conflict that has killed tens of thousands of people, forced millions to flee and turned entire cities into ruins has also had a profound effect on pets and animals," said Veronika's mother, Oksana.
She says she has never seen animals retreat as much as during explosions.
Above her head, the collapsed walls of the family apartment are still visible, as well as some of Veronica's belongings that fell to the fifth floor.
They now live with friends about a 20-minute walk away, waiting for the government to find them a new apartment.
"This war, this 'liberation'... I hope we get it," Oksana said, crying as she reached out to hug her daughter.
"No, I won't cry," she added.
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