From Ukraine

Part title

For me, as well as for millions of Ukrainians, it all started on Feb. 24. I woke up at 6 a.m. when my beloved said, "Nastia, it has begun." I still did not understand the scale of what was happening, even when I saw the smoke through the window. I remember imagining the impossible, that the smoke was just morning fog. No, it was smoke from a Russian rocket that fell two kilometers from us.

I was born and lived all my 22 years in Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine. This city is wonderful with its history, architecture, and people – life before the war. It was terrible to watch, how in a matter of hours this best place on the planet turned into an environment of panic and fear.

So, it was decided to leave, and my mother and I went to the gas station. There were long lines of 20 to 30 cars filled to the brim with clothes, food, and people. When we were filling up our car, I saw a man selling his car to another man. I thought, is everything really so serious? People at the gas station were buying cars, illegally, exchanging cash for a car without any guarantees. With trembling hands, people handed over a wad of U.S. dollars and nervously signaled to their families to get into a newly acquired car.

I have been in a relationship with a wonderful guy; he is my strength and inspiration. And we broke up because my family needed me and his family needed him. Everything was like in a movie: I just screamed to the whole world (but no one heard this, my soul screamed). It seemed to me that I was hugging him for the last time. At the same moment, I tried to drive away the thought that kept popping up in my head: that I would never see him again. We said goodbye, and I and my family – my sister, mother, father, grandmother and aunt – went to a safe place.

Temporary safety
Dense green forests, endless fields, and clear rivers – that's the place where we spent every summer relaxing and looking after our garden. That is the place where everyone knows you. They love you there, and it makes you smile. When someone doesn't like you, it just amuses you. There I got real pleasure and could take a break from the bustle of the city. I always considered that place – Gruzskoye – the safest on the planet. It's the village where my maternal grandmother was born, and it is the place where my parents met for the first time and fell in love. Of course, as we ran away in panic and fear, it was the place to go.

We sincerely believed that we were safe, but this belief vanished overnight. We learned that hopes and human lives can be lost in a second. On the day after our arrival in the village, we were stranded, ordered not to leave. But we could move around our site, and sometimes we went to visit our neighbors to exchange rumors and complain about our loved ones, who every day grew wearier from their stress and panic.

Makarov is a neighboring village, 20 kilometers from where we were. It seemed far away, but when Russian soldiers drove into this village in tanks, we thought it was very close. We learned about this from the Ukrainian military, who came to rescue the village. For two weeks I slept dressed in a tracksuit and sneakers, next to me a backpack with documents and photographs of my already past life. On the third day, a Russian rocket hit the power plant, and we were left without electricity, and some had no heat. Our stove saved us.

When Makarov was occupied, they stopped producing bread. No one could deliver any other food, because all the roads were blocked; any car that left became an ideal target for the Russian military. They spared neither bullets nor people in these cars.

We were literally disconnected from the whole world. It was possible to find out the news only by rumors, and they did not cheer us. Phones lost connection and their batteries eventually died. After many attempts I was able to get through to my beloved Petro a couple of times. In one call, the conversation was short:

She: "How are you?"
He: - "OK, how are you?"
She: "OK too. I miss you a lot."
He: "I love you, princess. I'll be there soon. Believe me."

Russian rampage
And I believed him, looking at the horizon of thick, black smoke accompanied by a modern symphony of explosions. And while I was getting at least some strength from the voice of my beloved, in neighboring Makarov, the Russian invaders – as we would learn later – were destroying families, breaking into the houses of our people, taking out all the men and shooting them without a thought: the grandfathers of their sons and little grandchildren. After that, they looted these houses, and for whom it was not enough, they raped the mothers and wives of the men they had just killed.