Sasha Paskal was getting ready for the beach when a Russian missile came through the roof.

It was May 2022 in Zatoka, a seaside village in Ukraine’s Odesa region. Sasha, then six, was home with her mother, Maria. The sun was shining. No air raid siren sounded. They neither saw nor heard a warning.

Then their home collapsed around them.

Maria lost consciousness in the explosion. When she awoke, she found her daughter lying beneath the wreckage.

“Our daughter was lying on her belly. A concrete slab, a very heavy and very large one, was lying on her leg,” Maria later told the Museum of Civilian Voices. “Her arm was dislocated, so that her bones were seen, and her finger was hanging loose. She also had a lot of bruises on her head.”

Neighbours helped lift the slab from Sasha’s crushed left leg. She was rushed to hospital and placed in a medically induced coma, spending 15 days in intensive care.

Doctors initially feared the effects of her severe head injury. Then they found that blood had stopped circulating through her damaged leg. The limb remained cold, leaving them no choice but to amputate it.

Sasha had been a promising rhythmic gymnast before the attack. Losing a leg could have ended that dream.

Instead, it clarified how badly she wanted it.

“My passion for sport is bigger than my loss,” Sasha, now 10, told CNN Sports.

She spent seven months in rehabilitation, learning to walk with a prosthetic leg. Then she returned to the gym.

Seven months after that, Sasha competed again. Performing with her prosthesis, she won her first competition back in Chornomorsk.

“Gymnastics is one of the most important things in my life,” she said. “I like it very much. It’s my everyday opportunity to be fit (and) it’s my passion.”

That passion has since carried Sasha far beyond the gym.

This summer, she performed in Paris, New York City, Rio de Janeiro, Nairobi and Tokyo as part of the Dance of Freedom Tour. The Rinat Akhmetov Foundation and FC Shakhtar Donetsk created the five-city initiative to share the stories of Ukrainian children affected by the war.

Sasha performed in front of the Eiffel Tower and on the red steps of Times Square. She danced in Nairobi and spent time with Brazil’s women’s artistic gymnastics team in Rio.

“It’s an unbelievable experience,” she said. “Each city is amazing and beautiful in its own way, (and) I’m really happy to travel because it’s an opportunity to distract myself from what’s going on in Ukraine.”

Her mother watched from nearby at every stop.

“She’s unbreakable,” Maria told CNN Sports. “She’s so strong and motivated. We are very proud because, although she’s very young, she’s a role model for many people with similar circumstances. We never pushed her, what she’s doing comes from her and we support her in her desire to do gymnastics.”

In 2025, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and First Lady Olena Zelenska presented Sasha with the “Future of Ukraine” state honour.

The recognition came as the toll of the war on Ukrainian children continued to rise.

According to UNICEF figures cited by CNN, nearly 2.6 million Ukrainian children remain displaced. Since Russia launched its full-scale invasion on February 24, 2022, over 3,200 children have been killed or injured. Over 1,700 schools and educational facilities have been damaged or destroyed, leaving one in three children without full-time, in-person education.

Sasha carries that reality into every performance. But she also carries proof that Ukraine’s children still have plans for their futures.

Earlier this year, she won gold at Carla’s Rhythmic Cup, an international competition in Romania.

Her next goal is even bigger.

Sasha wants to compete at the 2032 Paralympic Games in Brisbane and win a gold medal, if rhythmic gymnastics is added to the program.

During the New York stop of her tour, she met Ukrainian boxer Oleksandr Usyk, the former undisputed heavyweight champion and a 2012 Olympic gold medallist. He offered her a champion’s advice.

“Do as I did in the past,” he told her. “Take a piece of paper (and) write your name and that you’re an Olympic winner. Read it every day and this will motivate you.”

Zelensky gave her a message of his own when they met.

“Please never give up, and just move forward.”

Sasha appears to have taken both men seriously.

Four years ago, rescuers pulled her from beneath a concrete slab. Today, she crosses competition floors on the leg she learned to use after the missile took her own.

And each time the music begins, she keeps moving forward.

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