On February 24, Angelina woke up early in the morning.

Just minutes after Vladimir Putin delivered his televised speech, Kharkiv was fired upon.  



- When the war started, I was asleep.

My parents woke me up and we heard explosions, my dad said it was fireworks.

But mother said that there is no one who shoots fireworks at five in the morning, then we understood, she says.  

The city under constant fire 

Ukraine's second largest city, Kharkiv, is just a few miles from the Russian border and was one of the first cities to be attacked when the invasion began on February 24.  

In the following months, the city was under daily heavy fire and many of the inhabitants have been forced to seek refuge in panic.  



- One night I only slept for a minute, then my mother woke me up.

An airplane flew over us.

I got dressed very quickly but my mother only had time to put on a shoe, says Angelina. 

Fled with the ballet school 

Angelina dances ballet and went to Kharkiv's ballet school.

She was one of several hundred students who were helped to come to safety by the school's former teacher Eugenia Iashchuk who now lives in Stockholm. 

A new documentary from SVT Nyheter depicts the ballet school's escape from the war.  

- I dreamed that I would get to dance on a big stage, says Angelina. 

Today she lives with her mother in Sweden and has been able to continue dancing ballet.



The documentary Ballerina from Kharkiv depicts the students' escape and Eugenia Iashchuk's struggle to help them.

It is now available to watch on SVT Play and will be broadcast on SVT2 on May 24, at 22.00.