Nine girls tell Maidan how they lived the war day in and day out in Ukraine

The war comes suddenly, do not ask our permission to prepare, and do not allow us to say goodbye to life in us or in our loved ones, and if we have life after that, its wound in us never heals, and despite the questions that rage in us about its causes, circumstances, and the possibility of escaping from it or even preventing it, everyone remains stuck on On the brink of pain, they are waiting for their turn to befall them or to be saved, whether they realize this or not.

In a context in which the war presents numbers, statistics, military operations and political negotiations, "Maidan" succeeded in reaching the depth of the battlefield, which is now burning, devouring a new part of this land, in Ukraine in particular, so we collected testimonies shared by Ukrainian individuals and families who wanted to see the story with the eyes of humanity alone, Far from cold numbers.

When the hour of war strikes

Those who lived through the war say they learned about its beginning when they received a warning call from family or friends, or when they saw missiles flying over their heads.

This is what happened with Anastasia Bohush, who received a call from her mother at six in the morning of the twenty-fourth of last February, warning her of the outbreak of war, and asking her to leave the capital immediately. I had to pack my things and move to live with her, because I was living alone in the north of the capital and they lived in the south of the country, none of my friends, not even me, of different ages and experiences, thought that a war of this magnitude could happen, it seemed as if The planet was attacked by aliens, the media rumors caused some tension, but for me I went about my life normally, until the beginning of the war.”

Five hours later, 40 km from Anastasia, in the northern city of Irpin, Sasha received a call from her mother for the same reason, “It started with a call from my mother, I did not care and did not answer, But she called back and answered the phone, and she replied: "The sun has risen, wake up, the war has begun." my city".

At the same time, but in the southeastern city of Zaporizhzhia, a civil servant called Anna Eremenko to warn her that a large-scale attack had begun. At that moment, she says: “I realized then that The war has begun.” Elsewhere in the same city, Olesia Lapikova received a call from her parents telling her the war had begun, but the situation was different for Oleksandra Hlizhynska in Kyiv and Yana. Tvereza) in the city of Volnovakha in the east, the phones did not tell them, “Yana” says: “I woke up at four o’clock in the morning of the twenty-fourth of February to the sound of a jingling made by what we later learned to be Grad missiles. We are people who live on the front line, and we have the ability to discern the location and direction of these missiles.”As for “Alexandra”, she was staying in a hotel for her participation in a specialized training in psychology, she says: “We were studying the value of the human self, how to defend personal boundaries, and how to build relationships between people, and on the morning of the twenty-fourth of February I heard a voice A loud thud. It was the sound of a Russian missile that landed near the Tripillya CHP power plant in Kyiv, not far from our hotel. Then I heard another raid, and I knew the war had begun.”, close to the hotel we were in, and then I heard the sound of another raid, and then I realized that the war had begun.”, close to the hotel we were in, and then I heard the sound of another raid, and then I realized that the war had begun.”

Alexandra also shared a story on Active Society (Активна Громада) about the young Andrey who was sitting in a café in Kharkiv when the first rocket fell on the city next to the building in which there was In it, all the windows were smashed and everyone fell to the ground and then ran to one of the corridors and sat in it. He recalls what happened. He says: “An air strike, it was dark, I couldn’t breathe. I looked 20 meters away and found a hole that penetrated six floors.”

Telephone alarms and the sounds of war were the starting point for an experience that was too harsh for the people of Ukraine to comprehend, and each of these people had a different story that began after that call or the voice. In the morning, when the Russian forces began their attack in the early hours, I thought that what was happening was only on the border or eastern Ukraine, and while I was preparing my bag to leave, I received a call from a friend of mine whose husband works in the special services and told me that I had to leave for my family’s house as soon as possible, although They both didn't care what the news had reported the day before, at that moment I knew I had to run fast."

For Yana, this was not her first experience with the war, however, she did not want to believe that it would happen again.

Yana hails from the city of Donetsk, which suffered from the conflict in 2014, and has recently moved to Volnovakha. Hearing the sounds of beating, I picked up my sleeping child and ran to the bathroom, he told me then that he was not afraid, but I saw the fear in his eyes, I realized that the windows could explode and cause great damage, this might happen and I would not find a way to escape, so I ran to the car, and called I told my mother that I would come immediately to pick her up."

As for Anna, her first reaction was to think of escaping somewhere, before her mother, who lives in Crimea, called her asking her to return to their home there, where the residents believed that she was safe because it was under Russian control.

She says, "I didn't think about doing that, there were Russians too. In the first days of the war I thought to myself, I wanted to buy food and medicine, then I thought I should go to the bomb shelters, I started plastering the windows and collecting the water in the bathroom."

Anastasia, a second character with the same name, recalls the last night before the wars occurred, saying: “I fell asleep on the evening of February 23, my last deep and safe sleep, when I woke up, I realized that life would not return to the way it was. The news says that The war had begun, I didn't want to believe it, my mind refused it, and my husband and I began to pack our things, we live in a rented house, we gathered our things in a black garbage bag, and we prepared emergency bags and put clothes, pants, light shirts, medicine, documents, and two bottles of water , sterilizing equipment and a comb, we have some food, who would have thought that's all you'll need? Most of all my husband is by my side. But when the sun came up, we got scared and worried, so we decided to check the way out to my mother-in-law's house, it wasn't calm She lives alone."

As for Alexandra, she began to collect her things, as everyone did, but for the first time in her life she began to think of death:

escape journey

"In war, people do not behave as our Lord created them, people go crazy and the scales slip away. At that time, not only hair or clothes will be disheveled, but the heart will be shattered."

Radwa Ashour

The participants complete their conversation with us by describing their escape journey from the targeted cities to other cities, and some of them did not realize where their journey would end, while others did not have the space to live.

About her trip, Anastasia Bosch tells us: “I asked for a taxi and the cost was five times the usual price, and no one answered, then I decided to take the subway, and as soon as I went out into the street, I heard the sirens sounding to warn of the raids, and I realized that something dangerous was happening.

Sirens in Kyiv?

In 2022?

I didn't find many people at the train station, but most of the people were carrying their bags, and when I reached my father, we went to a pharmacy and found long queues in front of ATMs, pharmacies, and food stores. As for me, I had previously heard it during a training I received about the danger of mines, but I had never heard air alerts in my life, and I had never seen so much terror and fear facing my country.”

Later, they were joined in the home of her family, her sister, her family and her grandmother, then more people joined until the number reached 16 people, sharing the basement. When the explosions were heard, she says: "I heard the sound of an explosion nearby, and that was the first terrifying moment, during the first days, the Russian forces blew up a lot of The places and we used to hear the sounds of explosions as if they were in the neighboring village, among us were 3 children under the age of 8, and we had to flee to the basement with them whenever we heard explosions or sirens, until they preferred to stay in the basement.”

Anastasia's basement in her family's house, this is where she sleeps, and whoever doesn't have space to sleep on the chair

The cellar was not equipped to receive everyone, and its condition did not allow for this number of people to stay, but the family tried to prepare it in a way that suits its current task, so they gathered some food and sleeping chairs and what looks like beds and turned into their place of residence, as for the men, including Anastasia’s sister’s husband and her father, who is 67 years old He carries a pistol, as they took turns on night patrols to guard the street and protect their families. "They represented our defense forces, so we would cook for them," she says.

Days later, her brother, his pregnant wife, and his three-year-old child joined them, and although the date of the wife's birth was not approaching, fear decided an earlier date, and she gave birth to her child 3 weeks earlier than before the birth, says "Anastasia Bush": "Fortunately for her, their friend was able to He took her to the hospital, which was near a place that was bombed three days before she was born. I liked her courage, but my heart broke to see her among us carrying a fetus in her womb and we cannot guarantee that we will be able to transfer her to the hospital if the birth occurs. She was more fortunate than that woman in the hospital that was targeted by the planes. Russia on the 9th of March.

Anastasia holds her nephew's hand to reassure him to sleep

But the place became more dangerous, so “Anastasia Bush” decided to leave with her sister and her sister’s children to western Ukraine, and it was a crazy trip, according to her description: “We were shocked by what we saw on our way, there are signs of mines, tank traps and checkpoints, is this “Kyiv”? And when we arrived To the train station, we were afraid of being there. A few days ago, a group of missiles landed near it, and after hours of dangerous waiting, we took the evacuation train,” which was overcrowded and set off for a 15-hour journey in the dark, until we reached a safe place, she says. We got it physically, but psychologically we are still in the war zone.

One of the relatives helped them to provide an apartment that was vacant, but life in it was almost impossible in the absence of heating. The temperature is zero, the water is freezing and the humidity is full. She says: “We all slept on one bed, and because of the difficulty of the situation we thought of going to Slovakia, and my friend asked whether She can help us find a place to live, but she said that all the places are booked, and after a week in this apartment we were able to find another apartment, but we are thinking of leaving the whole country.”

On a similar trip inside "Kyiv", "Anastasia" (the second heroine of the same name) set out with her husband to escape from the Ukrainian capital, but the traffic was suffocating, everyone was trying to leave, she says: "I saw from the window some people who were walking between cars with their bags, hoping that someone would offer them help and take them where they wanted, while the people in the neighboring houses ran to the shelters and began preparing to sit in them by fetching water and setting the lights, so looking out the window was frightening, transportation did not work, and the nearby train station was turned into a shelter for protection from nuclear bombs There was nothing they could do.” Then they looked for a taxi, but to no avail. Because they had no banknotes, they joined long queues at the ATMs, fearful that the machines did not have enough cash to meet everyone's needs.

People queuing at an ATM

While they were waiting for their turn, Anastasia says: “A huge missile passed over our heads, then another passed and I knew then that I had to run away, so we decided to look for a taxi again, and then we went to the train shelter carrying our emergency bags for the night. My husband holds my hand, we run to the subway station."

There, at the station, the scene was closer to a horror movie, as I described. The place is crowded with people, some are sitting on the floor, and some are lying on cardboard. Some have brought sofa cushions in their house, and others have brought their pets. She adds: “It was terrifying to see the children crying and wanting to sleep. Some of them sleep in their parents’ arms and the parents take turns in that, the weather was so cold, I realized that I would not be able to sleep in this position.”

Over time, the sound of the explosions became closer to them, so they decided to take a bus to move to the working subway station, and despite the disappearance of the buses, they saw a man who owns a large car trying to transport people to that station, so he helped them go to it, and they managed to reach her mother-in-law's house, the situation There it is quieter, so they begin to tighten the windows, prepare the place, and whenever they hear the sounds of wind alarms, they perform their prayers, praying that nothing bad should happen.

Not a short time passed until the missiles began flying over the apartment buildings that shook from the explosions, they heard the alarm sounds repeatedly, and the planes began to target people's homes, so they decided to go to another city, they did not know where they could go, but they headed to western Ukraine, and at a station Trains A lot of people were waiting for the train, which passes once an hour.

She continues: "I watched children playing and laughing. This scene is the only one that can take away fear from me. When we got to the place we want, the organization official was trying to organize people to allow the passage of women and children, but people were terrified and started scrambling and the children started crying, I didn't see anything like this." In my life, I felt that my heart would stop, and when I was on the train, a pregnant woman clinging to her little daughter told us that she had missed two trains, because people did not care that she was pregnant, everyone is trying to survive.

During the trip, Anastasia and her husband, the train windows were closed and covered with curtains, the lights were off, and they were instructed not to open the windows, and to lie on the ground when the sound of shelling was heard, she says: “I will remember this trip for the rest of my life. All the houses are crowded with displaced people, I did not pray in my life as I prayed during this period, I was worried about my husband, and I promised my Lord that I would not smoke and would not drink alcohol, and more than that, to help me find a home, and the miracle happened.

As for the journey of Ivan Hryhorchuk, who was no better than others, he told us that he had to live in several houses and then left them on his way to escape, and during his journey he saw everything that could fly, run, or burn, “We could hardly leave the shelter.” It was surrounded by heavy raids, and the explosions were very close to us, and we saw those who could not escape, as civilian cars were shot at, houses were destroyed, and fires were set ablaze, we will never go back to the way we were a month ago.”

A scene from the bombing during Evin's flight.

Life under bombardment

After the war, Sasha finds herself a victim of insomnia. She could not sleep well during the first weeks. She was preoccupied with how to protect herself and her family. She says: "I did not turn on the lights in our house. We live at the entrances to the city and assume that we will get in trouble if the occupier tries to surround In Kyiv, so we decided to leave for Lviv, where my husband’s aunt helped us find a safe place.” But the new place was no better, it is near one of the airports, and this means that they hear strong explosions, some of which In breaking the windows in that house, she says: "We read on the news about several missiles falling two kilometers from our house, it's terrifying, we are no longer safe anywhere in Ukraine, today is the 31st since the war began, and we realize that our lives will not It will never be the same again."

As for "Anastasia" and her husband, they now live with a strange family, but they are very generous, and they try to help her in performing the tasks of the house, she says: "I learned how to grow potatoes and carry rabbits." Mrs. "Anna", the owner of the house, has become a role model for her. Three jobs to take care of her mother and son, and at the end of the week she tends her garden, and a month after the war began, Anastasia expresses her longing for her city, her friends and her home, and she sees that the war revealed the truth about some people (who think only of themselves) who refused to help her and her families, but she expresses: I want peace and health, and I have started running to escape the news in my head to feel some relief, and I pray to God to protect Ukraine.”

We were also joined by Michael Tulsky, who could only express his view of life during the war in a few words: “After all we have been through, I can only see life now of starving people, and the rest of the kind and givers, no I can see life but a few grams of flour that hungry people give to hungry people, I see life in the glint of gratitude that shines in the eyes of my nine-year-old daughter, when she was so hungry I couldn't find food for her, and all I could do was give her some crayons And the papers, I did it and my soul was in pain, but she was grateful for it, though she had a right to be angry or sad, but she was happy for that moment.”

Tetiana Romanova tells us about the situation in the city of Chernihiv in the north: “We suffer from aerial bombardment and artillery, they target civilian facilities and kill civilians. What we live in now, the communications, electricity, heating and water networks were destroyed more than two weeks ago, now people cook their food in gardens using firewood, sleep in very cold and damp basements, and collect water in buckets using fire hydrants that have not been used for hundreds of years, we now live in an era As dark as the Middle Ages, but this is happening in the twenty-first century and in the European city of Chernigov.”

As for "Yana", she tells us, "She hears the sounds of explosions in the last places she has taken refuge, but everyone there is hoping to return to their homes or help those who want to get out of Volnovakha." But we're still alive, and that's the most important thing."

Kateryna Tsybenko manages to express her feelings for us about what is happening: “Every day of my life after the mass intrusion of Russia is filled with hate and anger, I saw so many posts on social media, I didn't know I could hate With this strength, I can't sleep well these days, I eat less food, and my face is worse, I am grateful that I am still alive and that my house has not been destroyed, so I am in a better position than others, but there are people who spend weeks in the basements without Food, electricity or water, the Russians prevent them from evacuating, people are dying now and are buried in their gardens, it is frightening and horrific.” We add to this account what Vladyslava Denys shared with us about what a woman who lives in Mariupol told her.(Mariupol) in the southeast, that the people in that city are now unable to bury their dead to the extent that the police demanded that they collect the dead in the balconies of the houses (balconies), and this lady wonders during her narration about the number of dead in the balconies of the burning buildings surrounding her house.

Some dead bodies

confrontation

Another life comes and dies, this paradox is even more cruel in wartime.

Anastasia Bosch tells us about the worst thing she has been through. "Valeria" through a message she received, and the last message of "Valeria" to her friend in their chat group was that she is tired of everything that is happening and that she is leaving with her mother, "Kyiv", she is from the city of "Donetsk" and had previously faced war in 2014. But during her escape trip, a Russian tank surprised them and targeted the car they were traveling in, killing “Valeria”, her mother, and the driver. She says about this: “We cannot comprehend what happened, not even overcome this loss.

As for Olesya, she has remained in her city of Zaporizhia to this day, and she tells us: “I try to be useful where I can and however I can. Money is transferred, medicine, clothes and necessities are collected, I have seen wonderful, loyal and generous people.”

Katrina also moved, but in her own way, adding: “I diverted the energy of my anger and hatred during my work as a volunteer preparing Molotov bombs, they are necessary to stop the tanks. Quickly and directly.” She also collects money to donate, participates on social media, and communicates with Western media to convey the truth of what is happening. She says: “I feel that I am participating in achieving victory for us. I feel angry and hated every day."

Preparation of Molotov cocktails

From her position in Chernigov, Tatiana says: “Every day we do what we can do to protect civilians, more than 60% of civilians have fled to the north, and most of those in the city now are old people or those who have not been able to escape. I'm staying with my colleagues here, there is a lot of work to be done."

Similarly, in her hometown of Zaporozhye, Anna tried to ask her friends what she could do to help the city, but though one of them replied, "We're leaving in an hour and a half, will you leave with us?"

She replied, "No, I must stay and help as much as I can." As for Alexandra, after thoughts of death, she began to think about what she could do best to face the Russian aggression, what could her team do?

And she began to act: "Now we are doing everything we can to win, to protect people's lives, and to expel the Russians from our homeland."

What do we do?!

Concluding her conversation with us, Anastasia Bosch is still concerned about contamination from unexploded ordnance. She has experience in this field. Before the war, she worked in educating the population about the dangers of mines and unexploded ordnance, and now she holds hope for the future of “Ukraine.” We have heroes in the emergency services, they are better than Batman, Spider-Man and others, they clean the lands and facilities of explosives, they work under bombing to protect people's lives, they will be able to cleanse our beloved Ukraine of all the evil that has been presented to it, because we are in our land She told us two days ago that she left Ukraine, but she hopes to be back soon.

Children from the Anastasia family watch a UNICEF cartoon about the dangers of mines and unexploded ordnance while they are in the basement.

As for Evin, who shared with us what he wrote and his wife, he tells us about his house, some small potters and their sewing workshop in a village near Bucha, and he hopes to return to him soon, and adds: "But we don't know if "soon" will be this year. Is our house still standing? I have sent pictures that may show what is happening," he means in his country.

Evin began his letter with “warm greetings from Ukraine.” Perhaps he wanted to defeat the war with some hope and beautiful words about his homeland, then followed it with: “We Ukrainians have had our share of fear. We had a life before the war but we lost it. The war will end.” Let's talk about our lives after that, as we are now fighting not only for our country, but for our identity, which forms the basis of our future."

Perhaps the post-war plans were a way to gain more strength that would help them to survive. “I want to hug my post-war friends whom I couldn’t reach now,” Olesya says. “Then we will go to the sea and drink coffee on the beach.” Michael describes The situation now in which his fear was mixed with hope, saying: “I sometimes feel that it is over, just like a huge wave hitting the rocks of the beach and blocking the sun from me. I see nothing but darkness, but then I see the amount of kindness and gratitude that human beings carry, and all the darkness is dissipated by the light that human kindness radiates, I look at life now with an eye of gratitude to all of humanity, thank you all."

Anna concludes her post-war plans: “There will be life in all its colors and flavors after victory, I have always loved life, I will go to the mountains and the cinema, I will marry the man I love, I will walk through ruined cities after they are reconstructed, There are many plans too, I will climb Everest in pink shoes at the age of 150.

After a month of attempts to communicate with Ukrainian citizens to share with us what they are going through during the war, 11 people, mostly Ukrainian women, shared their stories and what they and their families have experienced since the war began, in addition to a woman who relayed a translated story to tell us what is happening, and there are other women who expressed their willingness to participate But they did not contact us again, and we cannot know what happened to them until this moment. Some of the participants here wrote their story with the participation of their family, and some preferred to tell us what is happening and what they feel through an intermediary for security precautions.

It is worrying that we may not know the fate of the heroes of our story after today, but they wanted, through their stories, to convey the voice of an entire people, and to remind the world that war is not statistics and numbers, as much as it is human beings who suffer, waiting for the unknown, every hour.

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Participating characters: