[WATCH] Ukrainian care worker: ‘The war haunts me every day’

It has been over 50 days since Russia launched its brutal all-out war against Ukraine.

Moscow’s unprovoked military aggression has already cost the country approximately 19,900 servicemen and 5,260 units of weapons and other equipment, according to Ukraine’s government estimates.

The invasion has triggered Europe’s largest-ever refugee crisis since World War II, with more than 4.7 million Ukrainians leaving the country and a quarter of the population displaced.

For Mariia Frankovska, a senior carer at the Caremalta homes for the elderly, who hails from the Western Ukranian region of Netyshir, the war is a constant source of grief.

Frankovska arrived in Malta in 2016, and has since built a career in the care industry. Speaking to MaltaToday, she said the war is something she still can’t wrap her head around.

“I am like every Ukrainian around the world. We feel terrible, and till this day we can’t believe this is happening in our country,” she said. “We have had conflicts, especially in the Eastern Donbass region, but a full-scale war? We can’t believe it.”

Mariia Frankovska still has family and friends still living in Ukraine or neighbouring countries like Poland.

“My brother, his wife, my niece, my ex mother-in-law... I have a lot of family still living there,” Frankovska said. “Some of them are even soldiers. They were normal people like us, and now they have to risk their lives defending the country.”

“I’m worrying all the time, you know, I’m worrying all the time,” she said. “It haunts me all the time.”

Mariia recalled the first day of the invasion, saying media reports on the conflict would make her anxious and agitated. “I remember maybe sleeping two hours a night.”

“I would wake up and have a lot of messages from my friends and family,” she said. “A friend from Poland had sent me a news article on how Russia has started bombing Ukraine, and I thought to myself ‘I must be still be sleeping’.”

Anxiously fidgeting with her spectacles, Mariia Frankovska recalls how just last summer she had made plans to visit a friend in her Kyiv. The Ukrainian capital is now one the country’s most bombed regions, with Russian forces stepping up efforts to seize the city.

“She was so happy to show me her apartment, but now… who knows what happened to it,” she said. “I hate what they’re doing with our children, our women, with our girls. It’s really a disaster.”

“We are all the same, and I never felt like hating someone, but with what they are doing to us, it makes me very angry.”

Mariia yearns for the war to be over so that people “can live free again”.

“We believe we will be okay and the war will be over soon so we can continue our lives how they were before,” she said optimistically. “People will one day return to Ukraine, and live happily in our beautiful country.”

Frankovska said going to work and helping people helps keep her mind off the conflict.

“The support of my colleagues, manager and friends has also been very helpful,” she said.

Mariia is also dedicating her spare time to aiding and welcoming any Ukrainian refugees which have arrived in Malta. She helps them in getting over the language barrier and settling in when they arrive. “It helps me cope.”

READ MORE: Multiple fatalities reported as Russia renews offensive in eastern Ukraine