For more than three years, every time 67-year-old Iryna and her husband stepped beyond their front door, the Ukrainian couple feared for their lives.

They could be caught up in shelling or in a drone strike — or end up being interrogated by security agents at gunpoint as they tried to cross a checkpoint in the southern part of Kherson region, an area still under Russian control.

Iryna, who CBC News agreed to identify only by her first name due to her concerns about retribution from Russia, said she and her husband felt they had no choice but to get Russian passports last year. That was when the local stores closed and it became impossible to get groceries without going through a Russian checkpoint.

Like many other Ukrainians, she and her husband accepted Russian citizenship because they feared what would happen if they didn’t.