Topic: Ukrainian Women

I am a mother of 2 sons aged 19 and 7. When the war started, I woke up from a call from a friend. I had time to think what nonsense it was, when suddenly the windows trembled from the blast wave and the car alarms went off. A month has passed, I still don’t understand how this could happen, how it was allowed.We were in our apartment for two nights. It was very difficult psychologically, so we went to the country. She is also in Kiev, but we have boarded up the window, and the sounds of explosions are now heard remotely, it gives a sense of security.

For me, the war began with her expectation. Everything has been shaky since December, but I realized that there would be a war on the night of February 22-23, when I watched a meeting of the Security Council of the Russian Federation, and then Putin’s speech. The confidence came that the decision was made, the bill goes for days.

Today is the 35th day. I don’t want to count anymore. The hope of returning to normal life is almost completely gone. I am 41 years old. I am from the Sumy region, the city of Shostka. Russian-speaking region. My father is Russian, from the Kursk region. Now the city of Shostka is surrounded and cut off.

It is still difficult for me to write and it is difficult for me to realize what is happening. On the 23rd, at work, we read the news about the introduction of martial law, about the signing of a decree by the president of a neighboring country, and we thought that this would bypass us – they would scare each other with pieces of paper, agree and disperse. Then there was an ordinary evening: dinner, daughter’s homework, a walk in the park. Everyday, everyday things. But I put the documents that were at home in one folder and left them on the table. Just in case. In the morning we woke up not from an alarm clock, but from terrible explosions. My daughter started crying. I needed to calm her down, so I didn’t come up with anything other than

Thank you very much for publishing the stories of Ukrainians. I realized that I want to write my own, too. I am from Dner, but now in Germany. We (me, my 10-year-old son, sister and her future daughter-in-law) left after the nuclear power plant in Energodar was shelled. Before that, none of us was going to leave, since our city is far from the line of hostilities, although explosions thundered in our house on the first night.

The war caught me at the train station in Kiev. On February 24, at 05:52, I had a train to Lviv to speak at the conference the next day — I am the head of the lagotvoritelny fund. At 5:30, I was sitting in the new waiting room when I saw that my sister was calling me. I thought it was a phone glitch, because she never calls so early. I answer. The sister shouts: “Zhenya, he started the war, they are bombing Boryspil!”.

On February 24, my husband and I woke up to a knock on the door to our a room. It was my dad, who barely moved around the apartment. He was woken up by a call from my husband’s dad from Kharkiv, informing him about the bombing. After about ten minutes, the explosions began in our house. So for the first time, I felt like everything inside was frozen, and I couldn’t breathe normally. My husband taped all the windows. I didn’t know what to do. Wake up my daughter or not. Packing up or not. There was a complete stupor. We decided to stay in Kyiv until the situation cleared up.

My name is Christina. I am 26 years old. I am from Kropyvnytskyi. This is the regional center in the heart of Ukraine. My region was not as affected by the war as Kyiv or Kharkiv. To us even bring in refugees from other areas. About a week ago, they were more than 40 thousand, now probably even more. A few days ago, the Mykolaiv region shot down a rocket that flew in our direction. Despite this, we have a relatively quiet life. I live with my parents, grandmother, younger sister, and animals. We are the first jumping up at every siren, rushed to the basement, and sat until lights out. One day we had six alarms, starting at 3:30 in the morning.

I’m Viola. From Nikolaev. Very peaceful and quiet city. Was. Now it is regularly bombed. I wanted to write from the very beginning of this column, but it was very scary. Now this is my constant emotion — fear. Even before the war, I moved to my parents, outside the city to a village near Nikolaev. They wanted to go on vacation, and someone had to look after the house.

My name is Tatiana. I have been living in Poland for the last year, my daughter lived in Odesa, my parents are in Zaporizhzhia, friends are all over Ukraine. The war for me began with the fact that my daughter called me in tears early in the morning: “Mom, I’m so scared, I woke up from bomb explosions.” She lived alone with a cat, none of her relatives in the city. When did the air campaign begin alarm, it was not clear whether it was our air defense or the Russians were shooting. It’s a long way to go to the shelter, and even with a cat, so they sat in the bathroom and slept there too.