Fearful escape for mum when dad died of heart attack - a day after invasion

She lost her father to a heart attack the day after the Russian invasion on Feb 24, but Ms Tetyana, 38, could not return home to attend the funeral. Travelling to Dnipro, where her parents lived, was not an option as the central Ukrainian city was under siege.

The Ukrainian, who declined to give her full name, is married to a Singaporean and works as a market director in the retail and consumer goods industry here.

Despite his terminal prostate and blood cancer diagnosis in 2017, her father's condition had remained stable, she said. The 67-year-old had spent the last hours of his life watching news about the invasion, refusing to even talk to his daughter on the phone for more than a minute at a time.

"I still can't believe he's gone... we couldn't go for his funeral. For my mother, it's more real because she saw him. They managed to say goodbye. But we couldn't say goodbye to him," said Ms Tetyana, who has lived here for 17 years and was sorry her family here could not bid her father farewell.

Ms Tetyana focused instead on getting her mother, Ms Valentyna, 67, out of the Ukrainian city. It required a 28-hour bus ride and 24 hours of queueing at the Polish border, and a string of volunteers to make it happen.

Her brother still lives in Ukraine.

Both mother and daughter spoke with The Sunday Times on May 3. Said Ms Valentyna: "I was trying to settle the paperwork and registration. After the funeral, everything was still like being in a fog to me. "

So Ms Tetyana did the thinking and planning. Her mother wanted to remain in Dnipro for the mourning period of 40 days, but after a nuclear plant about 200km away was hit, she decided Ms Valentyna had to leave immediately.

On March 6, Ms Valentyna was on an evacuation bus. She had time only to squeeze into her suitcase and a backpack some documents, cured pork for Ms Tetyana, clothes, and a Rushnyk family heirloom - a piece of cloth embroidered by Ms Valentyna's mother in 1954, while she was pregnant - with her. She also took photos she had of her and her late husband.

On the roads, the bus moved slowly with the lights dimmed.

On March 7, it arrived at the Polish border. They then had to queue to get into Poland.

Ms Valentyna and her fellow evacuees had to take shifts in the queue. She took the 5am to 6am shift.

"It was out in the open, so the volunteers were helping, bringing blankets and jackets. We were lucky... there were kids and elderly people who did not have a bus to stay in," she said.

"Everybody was just in an extreme state of shock. No hysteria. People were robotic, focused and just functioning to get things done. There were a lot of children crying. They were all asking to go home."

After more than 20 hours, she crossed the border together with the evacuees into Przemysl, a city in south-east Poland.

She then took a bus to another city - Krakow - to catch the train to the capital, Warsaw.

"The volunteers found that my train was leaving in nine minutes. In those nine minutes, they took my bags, put me on the train, and settled everything. That was the only reason I managed to catch the flight."

She arrived on March 9, and after a few hours, was at the airport to catch her flight to Singapore.

At 2.45pm on March 10, she was reunited with Ms Tetyana.

"I still can't believe and process what had happened. The strongest feeling for me is grief," she said. "Grief for the war, and a much more extreme wave of grief for my husband," said Ms Valentyna, who was married for 44 years. "This is not the first time I'm here (in Singapore) alone, but this is the first time that I don't have my husband to talk to.

"Every place I go to is very painful for me, because of the memories," she added.