At 25, Vlada H. has spent her life in the Ukrainian capital. It recounts the first days of the war at “Liberation”.
“I have been communicating in Russian since childhood, and my family too. But two days before the war, some of my friends and I decided to switch to Ukrainian as much as possible. I probably should have done this before. I live at home with my mother all the time. Until the last moment, most of us didn’t believe it was possible. It seemed utterly absurd, surreal in 2022 to so brazenly and openly begin a war against an independent sovereign state.
“On the 24th – now it seems like a very long time ago – I woke up and got ready for work as usual. I was in the shower when my mother came and said to me:Vlada, Russia has attacked.” I believed her, but I hoped it was just a prank after all. Alas. With these words, a new life and a new condition began. We immediately began to make contact with our relatives. I called a friend and woke her up. She said in her sleep: “You woke me up for that?” After that, we contacted each other almost every hour, like many of my relatives, friends, colleagues.
“What strengthens faith is our people. The way Ukrainians support each other, unite and cooperate, care about each other. Everyone’s calm and organization. People who continue to voluntarily defend the territory. I can clearly and strongly feel our Ukrainian spirit, our strength and our power.
“Thursday, I felt like I was in a kind of delirium all day, and I was afraid to go to bed. The thing is, we decided to stay home until the sirens sounded. We have three cats and we couldn’t leave them behind. It was stressful carrying them to the bomb shelter but we were ready: we had all our things ready, a cage for one cat and a bag where we had planned to put the other two.
“I went to bed with my boots on”
“Everything was laid out in the hallway, and we sat next to it for a while in the evening. Then it became known that an attack on Kiev was planned for 3 o’clock in the morning. And we decided to try to sleep. But it was very difficult. I slept with my boots on so I could react quickly if something went wrong. I only managed to sleep for a few hours, waking up from time to time to check the news and the situation in the city.
“After the ‘dream’, if I may say so, I woke up in a different state. There was no fear at all, there was a calm and a strength inside. I believe we will get through this because we have the truth with us and we are defending our home. We can see it even more when we receive news about the success of our army: these brave and strong men are winning victory after victory, they are confident and well coordinated. They defend our homeland fearlessly. Just look at the guys from Serpents’ Island. Our men are heroes!
“I have a lot of energy bubbling inside me. The least I can do is write to you, tell you, contact all my relatives and be close to my mother. I think if I could shelter my mother with our animals in a safe place, I too would jump into the defense of Ukraine. I want to be as useful as possible to my people and my country. But I realize that my responsibility is here, for now. Almost all my family is in Kiev. My brother, his wife and their little boy left to get him to safety. My grandmother categorically refused to leave, like my mother and my aunt as well as my husband. Of course, I stayed with them. Many of my friends and colleagues stay here with their families. We will not leave Kiev.
“In the house next door you can also see a lot of people, others near the bomb shelters. Some left, they have their own reasons. Some of my friends get together and help whoever they can. They cooperate, if possible, to help find means of transport, to move people to safer places.
“The faith remains intact”
“Sometimes you wonder, what’s going on right now? In my soul there is always hope that this is all just some kind of scary dream and I am about to wake up. But this is not the case.
“I just heard explosions. We hear them from time to time. Sometimes closer, sometimes further. But there is nothing to be afraid of. There is pain and resentment that we have to endure all this horror because of the diseased mind and fantasy of this usurper. That we have to worry about our loved ones, who can’t take care of themselves, who are weaker.
“But the faith remains intact. And it’s the least we, and I in particular, can do for our military now. Believe and don’t doubt for a second. Of course, we also hope that the leaders of world organizations will react appropriately and take concrete steps to stop Putin. Specifically: helping our military with money and equipment, disconnecting Russia from Swift, and imposing a no-fly regime over Ukraine.
“I think everyone should understand that this is not just a challenge for Ukraine, it is a challenge for the entire civilized world.”