When Russian military forces invaded Ukraine on February 24, the southern city of Kherson was among the first to come under hostile occupation.
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And that is where a doctor from Goulburn in the NSW Southern Tablelands sought to rescue her mother from.
GP Natalia Peker used the phone and family contacts to find a way to get her mother out of Kherson, and to safety.
"My family was constantly on the phone to my 84-year-old near-blind mother, instructing her to move to the corridor and stay on the floor to avoid damage from explosions," Dr Peker said.
"We told her to pack a suitcase and be ready to leave at anytime."
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However, organising a way for Dr Peker's mother to escape was no easy feat.
"While my mother's town was occupied, Mykolaiv, where my aunt, her daughter and grandson were living was being constantly bombed," Dr Peker said.
"Originally we had planned for my mum to travel to Poland with my aunt, who is 15 years younger than her.
"However, houses on my aunt's street were being destroyed and people were dying, which forced her to go into hiding."
Buses between the two towns stopped and the increasing danger forced Dr Peker to make one of the hardest decisions of her life.
"In the end I had to tell her to just run, without my mum," she said.
Dr Peker's aunt boarded a bus, one of 10 in a convoy destined for the Polish border.
Nine made it safely.
But the last bus, decorated with white flags and marked 'children', was destroyed by Russian tanks.
"Once I knew my aunt had arrived to Poland I was left with the anguishing task of delivering the cruel news to my mum that she was now on her own," Dr Peker said.
"The first thing she said was 'so you abandoned me', words that continued to painfully ricochet in my mind over and over."
Dr Peker said medications upon which her mother relied became unavailable in Kherson and she was unable to organise for anyone to bring her food.
Despite being advised not to move her mother from Kherson due to her age and the danger of transit, Dr Peker couldn't leave her without food or medication.
"My daughter Katya and I did not stop looking for ways to get mum out," she said.
"After many failed attempts we finally secured her a place in someone's escape car.
"With almost no eyesight and no-one by her side to guide her, it seemed like she stood no chance."
The car they travelled in was fired upon by Russians about halfway to the Romanian border, with the passengers forced to hide in shrubbery on the roadside.
Phones had been switched off to avoid the group being tracked and Dr Peker heard nothing for the duration of the three-day dash for the border.
Dr Peker's mother thankfully arrived safely at an airport in Bucharest, where a flight was booked for her to reach Australia, but she became lost.
Dr Peker called the Romanian police and her mother was found with a volunteer ensuring she safely boarded the flight to Sydney.
"I'm still in connection with that volunteer, all the volunteers were absolutely wonderful," Dr Peker said.
Early on a Friday morning, April 1, Dr Peker saw her mother for the first time in seven years.
"When I picked mum up from Sydney airport I asked her how was Bucharest, to my shock she said that she had never been there," the GP said.
"Mum was in such a state of shock that she could not recollect much of her journey at all.
"Her memory only started to return a week later."
Now settling into her new home in Marulan, Dr Peker's mother, an extremely resilient woman, said she wouldn't return to Ukraine.
Dr Peker believes her mother's statement demonstrates the severity of the violence that is currently occurring, recalling how much her mother loved her country.
Currently, Dr Peker is trying to bring her mother's Ukranian neighbours as well as her aunt, her daughter and grandson to stay with her.
"There'll be a lot of us but there's no way I could say no," Dr Peker said.
