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Oksana remembers how she knew the Russian attacks had started in Ukraine. It was about four in the morning when she heard a massive blast. Her adrenaline spiked. She shook her husband awake and said: “Kolya, there is a war!”

Suddenly the household was frantic. They started to seal the windows to keep the glass from shattering inwards, but Oksana knew that wasn’t enough. They had to get down to the basement. It was by no means a bomb shelter. It was never built for that. But it would have to do. There was no time to go anywhere else.

It wasn’t just Oksana and Kolya. She also cares for orphans and foster children in Brovary, just outside the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv, for SOS Children’s Villages.

War forces a grim choice: Tatyana, another Ukrainian woman involved with SOS Children’s Villages, managed to escape the war with her six foster children, without them hearing the bombing. But she had to make an awful decision. Stay in Ukraine with her family or leave and save her foster kids.

“I have a daughter and mother in Ukraine, I am worrying so much, but these children should be saved,” Tatyana said from the SOS Children’s Village in Bilgoraj, Poland, which lies close to the Ukrainian border and is taking in evacuees.

“My daughter is an adult already, I asked her if she wants to come to Poland as well, but she doesn’t want to,” she said, adding that her daughter wanted to stay to fight against the Russians.

Tatyana decided to foster children because she had always wanted a big family. Now that family has been forced apart.

One girl who has been mothered by Tatyana since she was just one year old was with her as we were talking. Now 13, she seems calm and has a sweet smile for strangers before opening up about her feelings.

“I’m anxious, scared,” she said. “I’m worrying for my relatives, for all Ukrainians.”

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