Sisters Yustyna and Yaryna find refuge in Canberra after Russia's invasion of Ukraine one year ago

"We just woke and realised that the war had begun. I didn't want to believe it. I turned on the TV and I knew it. It was true," Yustyna said.

"I woke up my daughter. I woke her up and told her we needed to pack our things. She started to cry."

The two sisters, both in their early thirties, then spent the day rushing between their homes and basements for protection - eight times in a shelter on that first day, the invasion day which changed their lives and sent them on a journey to Belconnen, a journey neither knows the end of.

"You never know what will happen when it's missiles," Yaryna said. "You just know that in the sky there is danger."

Yustyna finished the thought: "We never wore pyjamas at night because you go to the basement suddenly and it's cold."

It's winter in Ukraine at the moment, and temperatures fall far below freezing.

"A lot of people had said you should pack your necessary things but we couldn't believe it would happen," Yaryna said.

"I started to pack. My son, who is eight years old, asked if we were going on vacation, and I explained to him that it wasn't a vacation."

They filled their cars with petrol, as was the common way a year ago in Lviv in the west of Ukraine.

After ten days of life-threatening danger, and the sound and sight of war, they decided to pick up the suitcases they had packed on day one and flee.

Initially, they went to Poland in cars packed with people, two families in one.

But Poland wasn't home and it was too close to war. It, too, is part of that region known as "Bloodlands" because it has so often been drenched by slaughter. The Nazis swept through from the west in 1939 and the Red Army swept back in 1945.

But the sisters have a great-aunt in Canberra whom they had always dreamt of visiting, never thinking they would.

She had left Ukraine in 1949, after World War II. She offered them hope in 2022.

And so the two sisters now work as dental assistants in a surgery in Belconnen.

Their children - two daughters (11 and 4) for Yaryna and a son (8) for Yustyna - are in local schools.

"Our kids are so happy in Australia," Yustyna said.

But the two mothers add worrying detail. Their children are clearly still fearful. Fear is triggered by a fire truck siren. "The kids started crying. They wanted to run somewhere," Yustina said.

"Even now, when there are fireworks, it reminds them about that time."

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The sisters' parents also fled from the war to Australia but returned to Ukraine because the pain of separation from family was too great. They couldn't leave aged relatives alone.

The two sisters are married but don't want to talk about their husbands, men in a time of war have a hard time one way or another.

In Canberra, the two women live in two worlds: they make new lives for themselves and their families in Australia, even as they talk to family back home.

Every day, they try to talk to family in Lviv but sometimes Russian attacks knock out the electricity there so video chats are impossible. Then, they resort to texting.

Yarina has already qualified as a dentist in Ukraine but the qualifications don't apply in Australia, so she studies in the evening to requalify. "I need to start again. I try to remember everything I studied 20 years ago."

Yustina has a degree in nursing. She continues to study online with a Ukrainian university, working at the Canberra dental surgery in the day and then studying to become a dentist in the evening.

Both of them keep emphasising how grateful they are.

"We are very happy that we have the opportunity to work here. Our boss is very helpful and our workmates are very friendly," Yarina says.

"Every day, our workmates are curious. They watch the news. They try to learn everything about Ukraine. They learn our words.

Yustina finishes the thought: "We really appreciate that our relatives are so helpful and lovely."

They cling to each other. Sometimes they cry. Neither knows the future.

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