Viazovska said in May that even though the war and mathematics exist in different parts of her mind, she hadn’t gotten much research done in recent months.
Viazovska’s sisters spoke of friends who have had to fight, including some who have died. Fortunately for Viazovska’s family and other Kyiv residents, Russia shifted the focus of its war effort to the Donbas region in eastern Ukraine later that month. In March, a Russian airstrike leveled the Antonov airplane factory where her father had worked in the waning years of the Soviet era Viazovska had attended kindergarten nearby. Her grandmother “could not imagine she will not die in Ukraine,” Viazovska said, “because she spent all her life there.” But her 85-year-old grandmother, who had experienced war and occupation as a child during World War II, refused, and her parents would not leave her behind. As Russian tanks drew ever closer to her parents’ home, Viazovska tried every day to convince them to leave. Viazovska’s parents, grandmother and other family members remained in Kyiv. On March 4, they arrived in Lausanne, where they stayed with Viazovska, her husband, her 13-year-old son and her 2-year-old daughter. After spending several days in a stranger’s home, waiting their turn as war refugees, the four walked across the border one night into Slovakia, went on to Budapest with help from the Red Cross, then boarded a flight to Geneva. They first had to wait two days for the traffic to let up even then the drive west was painfully slow. Her two sisters, a 9-year-old niece and an 8-year-old nephew set out for Switzerland, where Viazovska now lives. Viazovska no longer lived in Ukraine, but her family was still there. In late February, just weeks after Maryna Viazovska learned she had won a Fields Medal - the highest honor for a mathematician - Russian tanks and war planes began their assault on Ukraine, her homeland, and Kyiv, her hometown.
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