Kristy Frank moved from Ukraine to Utah to find her best friend.

The Utah State University volleyball player calls Inka Mehtola a teammate, a roommate, and a soulmate.

And in a family’s moment of greatest need, that bond became even stronger this week.

Frank, a graduating senior from Kyiv, had spent so much of her life thinking about the tensions between her country and Russia that she had forgotten about them in a way.

“People sort of got used to it,” she said this week during an interview shared by Utah State University. “I never really thought the world could be that crazy to let it happen.”

But as she scrolled through posts on Instagram last week, she saw the photos and videos her friends back home had shared, images of fear and violence — of war — in her city.

“When I saw that, my heart just dropped,” Frank said. “That’s the moment I realized what was happening and that everyone in Ukraine was in big danger.”

She called her father. Sitting in their family’s kitchen in Kyiv, he told his daughter he could hear the explosions.

“I just started crying,” Frank said. “I got so worried. It’s your family in the middle of this. My dad, he never cries and he started crying, too. That made me even more nervous.”

Frank’s family initially decided to stay in Kyiv. But after another sleepless night of explosions, of seeing fighter planes over their city, they decided they needed to get out.

“In that moment, they packed their stuff. They didn’t have a bus or a plane or a plan,” Frank said.

That’s when a teammate, a best friend, a soulmate, quietly stepped in.

“It’s very hard to see your best friend going through that kind of stuff,” Mehtola said.

As Frank spoke with her family, Mehtola was also speaking with hers in Raahe, Finland.

Frank’s family had found a bus through their church that took them near the Romanian border. After some issues, her father, who holds dual citizenship in Ukraine and Nigeria, was allowed to cross.

“I had no idea their plan,” Frank said. “When they got to Romania, they didn’t really talk to me as much. They were figuring out where to go and the next step.”

Frank’s parents had never met Mehtola’s before.

“The most communication [they’d ever had] is when we were both FaceTiming and they could see each other,” Frank said. “That’s about it.”

But that would change soon.

“My mom called me a couple of days ago out of nowhere and said, yeah, Kristy’s parents are trying to come here,” Mehtola said. “My mom [was] going to pick her family up from the capital city. They are going to my place for a while.”

On Thursday, Frank’s family arrived at Mehtola’s family’s home in Finland.

“It’s like in the middle of the forest basically,” Mehtola said. “It’s a very peaceful place. There’s not much going on. I think it’s good for now. That’s what they need.”

It’s what Frank needed, too.

“It’s incredible to find a friend like that, like Inka, a soulmate,” Frank said. “And then for her parents to be other best friends to my parents is so rare. They were so grateful and just amazed by how good people are.”