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“War broke my family,” says Aleona. Her husband left her with her two children in the village of Talakovka.

“It’s only through singing that I feel freedom,” she says. She works at Talakovka’s dom kultury, a community centre to promote arts and culture, where she sings karaoke.

As she sang one night, the village was targeted by Donetsk People’s Republic forces – with shells exploding within a kilometre. She carried on singing and did not stop until the shelling halted.