“We wanted to go as far away as possible, from all the horror, horror and hell that was in Ukraine. Our hearts were broken because it was our homeland. It was the first time in our lives that we tried to escape as far away as possible.”

On the morning of February 24, we woke up at 05:00 to gunfire and the sound of airplanes. We ran around the house in a panic trying to figure out what to do and how to get the kids away. In the streets panic began to spread, people bought everything there was to buy in the shops. Some families went towards Kyiv and some stayed behind, hoping that the war will pass by their village. We lived in a village, Katyzhanka, in the Kyiv region. We experienced one of the first attacks coming from the Belarusian side. Family and friends called and said they saw columns of armored cars driving and destroying everything in their path. They reached our village at 16:00 on February 24. There was a lot of everything, it sounded very loud and we heard explosions and there was a lot of fire around.

We, with our neighbors and some other families, hid in the neighbor’s basement and hardly left it for the first three days. It was unclear what happened outside. Only the men sometimes went out and returned and told what the Russian soldiers were doing. Airplanes constantly flew so low that the plaster fell down. We held our breath and it felt as if the blood congealed. During the month we were under occupation, we learned to live in darkness, to be silent, to entertain ourselves by thinking of memories from the past and to fight on.

There was a catastrophic food shortage. The electricity went out on the first day of the occupation and the food in the fridge therefore started to go bad immediately. We taught the children to share with each other and eat what was available and they only got food twice a day. We were 24 people in the basement, 13 of them were children.

One night an armored column came and positioned itself in our house and our neighbors’. They started shooting and were also fired upon. This night I was most afraid that the earth began to tremble. The explosions were terrible and it was not clear where the bombs hit, what was happening up there and whether we would survive the night. It went on for two hours before it finally went quiet. We listened to the radio and understood that the situation was not good, there were no green corridors for evacuation and we were completely cut off from the rest of the world as all the bridges were blown.

The Russian army started looking for soldiers living in the village, they broke locks and kicked in the doors. They plundered and behaved as if they were rulers. Our neighbor was in the military and had three children. We were terrified as he was visited daily by Russian soldiers who forced their way into his house. The military also went to other houses and threatened with weapons and took people’s mobile phones. Some of the Russian soldiers looked like children and when they tried to escape from their positions they were shot by their fellow soldiers. In the village’s people’s house, the Russian military set up their military hospital. No one was allowed to enter there and their planes were constantly delivering there dead and wounded soldiers. Not so far away, in a school building, they had their staff.

This is how the days and nights went with a constant fear for their children, their relatives and their homes. The news gave strength as we hoped that all the bad things would end soon but unfortunately no miracles happened. When the food ran out and the children were completely exhausted, we made the decision to evacuate the children. My husband said “You can go but I will stay and help the Ukrainian military”

However, we did not manage to leave the village as the bridge was blown up, the river flooded and the Russian military did not allow anyone to leave. Some even escaped under fire by crossing a makeshift strait. We waited and a week before we finally left, we still moved back to the house as the children were tired and sick. One day, Russian soldiers surrounded our house and forced us at gunpoint to leave the house, the children cried and I too. They let me go to the kids but took my husband. He came back after a few minutes but those minutes were the longest minutes of my life. The children cried and laughed at the same time. The Russian soldiers began inspecting all the houses more often, they also moved into some houses even though the house owners remained. They kept waving their weapons in front of the villagers.

We prepared to leave, tried to find someone to help us but the roads out of the village were blocked by the Russian soldiers. In addition, the Red Cross had disappeared from the village as their representatives were injured by the Russian soldiers and no one wanted to continue helping.

Finally the day we waited for so long came, the tired and scared children did not understand where their mother was going to take them. They also didn’t know that they might see their father for the last time. I sat on the bus with the children and cried and the children, without understanding, said goodbye to their home. Ahead of us was that which I dreaded so much, crossing the river where the bridge had been blown up. Our lives depended on our success. When we got to the border of the occupied land, we were visited by Russian soldiers, on the other side of the river stood the Ukrainian army. We were lucky because there were no bombings when we traveled.

Have you ever seen a horror movie? This trip was horrible, it’s hard to describe in words. The bridge was blown up, smashed cars and things were everywhere, houses were also flooded. I still see these images before my eyes every day. Finally we arrived at our boys, the Ukrainian military, and we breathed a sigh of relief. The Ukrainian soldiers said we have to hide as there is constant shelling and it is unsafe here. Then we came to Kyiv with the help of the Red Cross, we registered and then went in different directions. We went to our close friends to find tickets and think about how and where to go next. The night was quiet but very emotional. After a shower we rested on soft beds, I enjoyed watching the children who were completely exhausted resting. In the morning we went to the train station and then on to Lviv. From there we took a bus to the Polish border. I remember it was cold and rainy but the children laughed and the youngest daughter fell asleep in my arms despite the cold raindrops. The older children were joking, volunteers came to them from time to time and offered treats that they had not seen for a very long time. Their happy faces – it was liberating to see after many days of sadness and worry.

After we crossed the border we went on to a refugee camp and after sleeping there one night we continued on. We wanted to go as far away as possible, from all the horror, horror and hell that was in Ukraine. Our hearts were broken because it was our homeland. It was the first time in our lives that we tried to escape as far away as possible.