Gamescom: The Ukrainian video game makers who kept working in a war zone
Like many colleagues in the video game industry, Iryna Bilous and Nika Avayan recently arrived at the world's largest gaming conference, Gamescom in Germany, to show off their latest title to fans. But for these two Ukrainians, the road to the trade fair has been anything but a normal journey.
After Russia invaded Ukraine on 24 February, Ms Avayan, chief operating officer of the Frogwares studio, decided to leave her small village near the city of Bucha.
She and seven family members, including her 76-year-old mother, bundled themselves into a car, driving for six days through queues of traffic and across country borders to make it to Germany. While there, her brother learned that his house had been hit by Russian artillery strikes and completely destroyed.
Ms Bilous, Frogwares' release manager, fled from Kyiv to France along with her pet cockatiel Blinchik (Pancake).
But, like many of their team members, after some weeks passed, and finding the situation around the capital to have stabilised at least to some extent, both returned to their home country, determined to carry on office life - and their latest project - as normally as possible.
While the two women have been allowed to leave Ukraine for their own safety and now to visit Gamescom, their male colleagues are mostly banned from leaving the country under martial law. Four members of the team even signed up to join the Ukrainian armed forces as the invasion began, and is still helping out with them today.
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