I am 35 years old. I have been living in Odesa since I was 17, before that I lived in Mariupol. I work as a data analyst. I live with 3-6 cats – depending on how it turns out to attach them. On February 24, I woke up to a call from my mother, that the war had begun. We discussed this possibility before, but I didn’t want to believe it in any way. That morning I had no stock of food, there was only enough cat food for two days, antidepressants were running out. And I’m lying in bed, hugging the cat, I hear the factory being bombed nearby, and I can’t get up. I lay there for half a day, and then I forced myself to pack that damn disturbing backpack and tape it up the windows.

I’m Sonya. In April, if I’m lucky, I’ll turn 27. I am from Kyiv, but for the last couple of years, I have lived in three cities: Odesa, Kharkiv, Kyiv. There are people I love living in each of them. I am an anarchist, so I have never harbored patriotic feelings, but my loved ones now wear machine guns, uniforms, and yellow-blue chevrons. And I’m wearing plitonoski [basics for bulletproof vests], first aid kits, and tactical gloves for them.

Hi, I’m Nastya, 22 years old. My life in Kyiv was quite carefree — if you look at it now, then for sure. I had a good job, a beautiful apartment. Two weeks before the war passed on nerves because of the escalation, but I did not believe that Russia could attack, I did not want to.

I’m Sasha, I’m 22, and my city is no more. A week before the war, I had nightmares and woke up in tears. “Just in case,” we started making a list of things and a plan of action. At 05:30 on February 24, I woke up and heard from my husband: “It’s started.” Somehow, immediately, without explanation, it became clear what exactly had started. There was no point in going to another area because the attacks were almost all over the country.

I am an executive producer of a major international production. I shoot commercials and movies. Now I’m like in the movies myself. In a very, very scary way. We were on vacation with the children when we found out about the war. Our return tickets were cancelled and we had to stay abroad. Our relatives, friends, friends, employees are in bomb shelters, someone managed to leave. Someone died.

My whole life is an attempt to escape from violence. The father, according to the textbook, isolated the mother and subdued her. The child, that is, I was part of the plan “you will not run away, wife.” Sleep deprivation, flinching at every knock, deprivation of money, food, beatings, hospitalization, marital rapes behind the wall, poor conditions in which it was necessary to exist, study, be a good girl. Neighbors, relatives, other people who can’t help with anything, with their problems, requests to suffer more quietly, not to scream at night when they try to break the wall with your head. Useless militia.

My name is maria. I am 28 years old. I am originally from Sevastopol, but I have lived in Kyiv for the last 5 years. The roots of my whole family are in Russia. Great-grandfather came to rebuild Sevastopol after the war, then took the whole family here. Every year on May 9, he took me to the Victory Day parade. And I always knew that the most terrible thing that can happen in a person’s life is war. I looked at the veterans, I saw that every year there were fewer of them. I was proud that I was the daughter of the people who saved the world from the “fascist infection” at a huge, simply monstrous price. Like many other Ukrainians, on February 24, I woke up to the sound of an explosion. In Kyiv, at 5:30 a.m.,

My name is Anna, I am from Kherson, which was completely occupied by Russian troops. I found out about the war on February 24 at 06:18, when I heard an explosion from a local airfield, it’s not far away. I reached for my phone and saw dozens of messages from my university friends who live in the USA, and a message from my husband, who is now on a flight. On the same day, I packed my things and went with my son to my mother, she lives on the first floor, and I’m on the seventh, and there is a basement there. The first days I couldn’t come to my senses, I was constantly crying and reading the news. When the fighting took place from the Antonovsky Bridge, we were quiet, and my mother and I began to amuse

I am 26 years old, I have staying in Kyiv with my beloved, our five cats, and a dog since 2019. I come from the Luhansk region. In the province where I lived, the war began in 2014. Exactly three days after my graduation. My family didn’t manage to leave, I lived in a war zone until 2019. From 2014 to 2016, they bombed constantly and heavily, then the bombing could be every 2 to 3 months. We called it “aggravation” and “calm before the storm”. Life there was like a hell of a Groundhog Day. In fact, this is not life, but survival. When I moved to my girlfriend in Kyiv, I began to slowly move away from the experience of trash. It seemed to me that the war would forever remain in the past. Alas, I was wrong.

Good night. Under the sounds of another bombing, I really wanted to write to you for the heading #womenofukraine. My name is Dasha, I’m about to turn 29, and I live in Kharkiv. More precisely, I lived. Today is the 20th day, and I do not know if I have a house and whether I will be able to return. I have never been apolitical, and after 2014 I began to pay special attention to everything that is happening in my country and around the world. There is no greater stupidity to me that being ignorant of things around you. Living in a democratic country, which is exactly what Ukraine was and, I hope, will remain, one cannot stay out of politics. Students, entrepreneurs, doctors, teachers — all of us – have the power to throw off and elect presidents.