When Mariya Grigoryeva found out she was pregnant with her second child days after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, she prepared to flee.

She and her young daughter left for Moldova in March 2022 while her husband stayed behind in Odesa to continue work as a seaman, she said. Two months later, they landed in Philadelphia, where her grandmother and other family members live and they have been ever since.

As the Ukraine-Russia war enters its third year with no end in sight, Grigoryeva doesn’t know when they might be able to return to Ukraine, where she said their life had been “perfect” before the war – and what they might return to.

“I had to leave because I had to survive and to give a new life,” Grigoryeva told ABC News. “It was a very hard decision to [leave] your home, your country, your relatives.”

Grigoryeva is one of nearly 6.5 million Ukrainian refugees recorded worldwide as of December 2023, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.