On the morning of 24 February, I got up before everyone else, but I did not turn on the TV and did not read the news. I cooked the breakfast and woke up the children. I have five children. The youngest is nine months old and others are of school age.

We sat down to have breakfast when my mother called me and said, ‘Turn on the TV.’

Then we got a message from school saying that classes were cancelled that day. TV news reports said that Ukrainian cities were being shelled from aircrafts and targeted with rockets; huge deadly rockets were falling on cities. It was very scary, and there was fear in the children’s eyes.

Then I felt for the first time how painful and scary it is when you cannot do anything and you are completely powerless.

The first day passed quickly. This was probably due to the state of shock. We did not notice how it passed. The six of us moved into the corridor. There were no windows there, and it seemed to us that this place was safer than the rooms with windows.

We spent all the night, the next day and another night there. Then, when missiles were hitting Kyiv, we decided to leave for my dad’s place in Zhytomyr region.

At first, it was calm and quiet there, but yesterday a shell landed near the house. Shrapnel damaged the roof. We were in the basement, so we did not get hurt. Now we have to leave this place too, but we don’t know where to go.

I am now looking for someone who could take us out of the village. It is now dangerous here too, and so far, we have not found anybody willing to come for us. But we will be looking further as we want to live on.