They squabble, as siblings do, and they both have a curious appetite for cheese, “like little mice,” their mother says. But they are small for 1-year-olds, a legacy of their premature birth during the first weeks of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. For seven months, Ms. Tsoi had enjoyed a happy and healthy pregnancy, largely without complications. “My mother-in-law entered our room and said, ‘The war has started,’” Ms. Tsoi said. After she had an emergency cesarean section, during which she lost enough blood to require two transfusions, her daughters, born six weeks premature, clung to life in incubators.

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Persons: Amina Tsoi’s, Tsoi, ‘, ’, Ms Locations: Ukraine, Mykolaiv