Kateryna Aslamova in the Red Cross Rapid Response Team.

It all began back during the Chornobyl fires of 2020. "That is just how it turned out for us - side by side with the State Emergency Service," says Kateryna Aslamova.

Since early 2025 she has been a volunteer with the Rapid Response Team of the Ukrainian Red Cross Society in the Kyiv region. The team works at the sites of russian strikes alongside the State Emergency Service: it helps the injured, searches for the missing and provides psychological first aid. In the spring of 2026 Kateryna completed training in rubble clearing and freeing trapped people.

After the massive attack on Kyiv in May 2026, she worked at the impact sites. In a TV report from those days, Kateryna said: a destroyed building on the day of a strike is a workplace for emergency services, not a backdrop for photos.

And that summer she spent her birthday at the site of yet another attack in the Kyiv region.