A performance by Ukrainian journalist Maria Romanenko and her partner Jez Myers, telling the story of their escape from wartime Ukraine.

After an extensive run across the country, including at Aviva Studios, Oxford, Liverpool and the Scottish Parliament, How NOT to Flee a War returns to Manchester for a one-off performance at The University of Manchester.

What begins as a surreal morning of explosions and disbelief quickly becomes a frantic and uncertain decision: whether to stay, where to go and how to leave a city rapidly emptying under threat. Built around their real journey out of Ukraine, the talk uses personal storytelling and images from the road to show what the first days of invasion felt like from the inside. Rather than a polished narrative of survival, Maria and Jez describe the experience with blunt honesty and dark humour – filled with endless traffic, exhaustion, panic, misinformation and the reality of borders under pressure. The talk draws on Maria’s perspective as a Ukrainian and Jez’s perspective as a British partner caught inside the unfolding disaster. Together, they offer a gripping personal account and a wider reflection on displacement, resilience and what it means to lose your home overnight.

The performance will be followed by a Q&A with the artists.

The event is organised by ‘Defiance: Artists at Risk’, Department of Modern Languages and Cultures, UoM, with the support of the School of Arts, Languages and Cultures and the Information, Advice and Guidance Team.