Illia Frolov 14, male from Donetsk

My name is Illia, and I’m 14. I’m 5’7″ or 170 cm. Often, I’m doing my homework at home, but after I finish it, I’m going outside and having fun with my friends. I also like fishing. I like it not that much, but it’s better than nothing. Also, I like to exercise and do sports. I don’t have my favourite game, but I kind of like basketball. By the way, I also have two dogs and one parrot. The dogs’ names are Yosik and Nika, and the parrot’s name is Kesha. I really love all of them.

I also really love my family. I have two brothers: Roma is 15 and going to turn 16 this year, and Kirill is 17, turning 18 this year. I love both of them equally. Also, my parents are the best people. They’re trying to make my life much better and happier. Theirs’ name is Yulia Frolova (mother) and Igor Frolov. My mother works as an online manager—online because currently, because of war, we can’t go on a job, because there’s a big chance that many people can die because of a rocket. And my father currently doesn’t have a job.

I have 3 friends in real life, and also 3 friends online. With friends in real life, I’m spending my time outside, and with friends online, I’m just talking with them, and we’re also sending TikTok videos to each other.

I live in a city named Slovyansk, but sometimes, when season starts, I’m going to a village, because we have there our bee-garden.

Last time, my city was getting bombed too often, and it’s always somewhere close to me. I’m usually getting scared because of this. But not looking at that, I really like my city. It has everything I would ever need in my life. I would live there for my whole life.

When the war started, me and my family moved to the village because it’s safer there. But sadly, I can’t go out with anyone here, because there are literally no kids around my age. I would even say there are no kids at all.

Because of the war, I can’t really study well, and my grades went down because of that. That seems to be the most problem here, because we’re also getting too many homework because of that. Also, I want fly to USA because I need some rest from war, and I want to share Ukraine’s traditions. Because of the war, I’m always feeling unsafe. I also hear drones flying over my house, and because of that I keep thinking that they’re going to drop a bomb on me. This makes me very anxious.