Petro was well aware that the full-scale invasion was inevitable, but he wasn’t going to leave his native Bakhmut. The man learned to live under shelling: "I’d hide somewhere, run in short bursts, and sometimes wait it out in the basement." Cluster shelling, missile strikes, mortar fire, and daily human losses — that was the terrifying everyday reality in Bakhmut. After one of the heaviest mortar attacks, the family finally decided to evacuate. Already in Kyiv, Petro learned that his two houses had burned down completely.