Unbreakable women in the spotlight - 6th March 2024

An innovative new project shines a light on the stories of Ukrainian women who sought refuge in the UK as a result of the Russian invasion of Ukraine on 24th February 2022.

'Nezlamna', which roughly translates as 'unbreakable', has been compiled by Katia Duncan, who's been living in the UK for 30 years, and also Vlada Stoliarova, whose grandmother was Ukrainian.

Katia Duncan: "And one of the questions that we've asked the women is, what, what, what is your story of being "nezlamna", of being this unbreakable woman. And they say, I don't feel like that. I feel like I break down every single day. And then I build myself back up."

The tales of 18 Ukrainian women are highlighted, whose experiences typify those of thousands of other women who were obliged to abandon their homeland to safeguard their offspring. One of the individuals who participated was Yulia Zabrodska.

Yulia Zabrodska: "We, Ukrainian woman meet with challenges and I think all of us we have a sense of guilt that we left our country. And these projects show that we are strong, we're fighting, and we try to settle in foreign country and protect our children."

Photographer Stoliarova captured her models bearing flowers. These natural objects are symbolic of fragility but also resistance, as they can stand tall in the harshest conditions.

Vlada Stoliarova: "I think it's very important to show that these refugees, that these women, that they're real. They used to have their lives in Ukraine, they full of love and full of just problems and the usual life that we have. But one day, it changed."

Nezlamna chronicles the women's agonising decisions to depart, but also the multiple challenges they've battled with as single parents, struggling to cope with the isolation from wider family and at the same time fearful of the unfolding dramas back home. Despite many of them being educated professionals, their qualifications are unrecognised, or else they lack the requisite linguistic abilities to take on a similar role.

The assignment's proved to be therapeutic not only for the women directly in focus, but also to legions of others. They witness the selfsame stories, mirrored in the 18 women's words and expressions.

Katia Duncan: "They lived through the experience, but also it has been therapeutic to other Ukrainians who, who saw themselves in these stories, so Ukrainians who read and relived and they felt that 'I'm not alone. I'm not alone in feeling like this.'"