Veronika Didusenko, who was crowned Miss Ukraine in 2018, said she and her son awoke on the first day of the invasion to the sounds of air raid sirens and explosions.
LOS ANGELES — A former Miss Ukraine winner on Tuesday described her journey with her young son to escape Kyiv and her homeland as Russian troops invaded the country last month, and called on countries to do more to arm her countrymen and women.
Didusenko told her story at a news conference in the Los Angeles office of women’s rights attorney Gloria Allred, who said she became friends with the former beauty queen several months ago. Didusenko, dressed in the blue and yellow colors of the Ukrainian flag, said she and Allred decided the situation on the ground in parts of her homeland was an important story to highlight on International Women’s Day.“Right now, millions of Ukrainian children and their mothers are trembling at every sound in the subway stations and bomb shelters. Even more heartbreaking that women are giving birth in such conditions in these shelters,” Didusenko said.