According to Perepilitsa, the Russians were not there from the start of the war. "For weeks, we were in a sort of 'grey zone' but when they entered the village they cut us off from Ukraine."
Did they force people to go to Russia? "They threatened us with a huge bombardment because they were going to attack Kharkiv.
"People simply didn't know what else to do so they got on the bus and went to certain regions of Russia", adds the young woman, saying parents with children in particular were "so tense, so panicky".
When the Ukrainian soldiers arrived in the village, after two months of Russian occupation, Perepilitsa recalled how she saw them in the street from a window.
"I cried, but they were tears of gratitude because I was really happy to see them," she said.
This Friday morning, "it was calm... we did not know if there would be an evacuation or not... My father saw that cars were driving. We took our things, our dogs and we left," she added.
After arrival in Kharkiv, they had to undergo a short interrogation before being allowed to leave.
"They asked me about Belarus and Minsk, because I was born in Minsk and lived there for 23 years. I said that I liked being here in Ukraine," said Efimovna, without being able to clarify who had conducted the interrogations.
Perepilitsa says her dog was born on the second day of the war and named "Bay, an abbreviation of Bayraktar", from the name of the Turkish drone with which the Ukrainian army is equipped.
"He is very brave, so now I have my own little Bayraktar to protect us," she added.
