Olena Solei | Kyiv

"Half the sky was red, a missile was heading toward our district"

Name: "Half the sky was red, a missile was heading toward our district"
Uploaded: 2025-07-08 16:09:23EEST
Duration: 11 min 23 s
Description: Olena is a writer who was deeply shaken by the beginning of the full-scale war. She could not believe that such horrors were possible in the 21st century. In the first days, she and her husband, along with their dog, hid in the hallway of their apartment, sleeping on a mattress and setting up minimal living arrangements there.

Olena is a writer who was deeply shaken by the beginning of the full-scale war. She could not believe that such horrors were possible in the 21st century. In the first days, she and her husband, along with their dog, hid in the hallway of their apartment, sleeping on a mattress and setting up minimal living arrangements there.

One moment stood out in particular — when a missile landed two kilometers from their home, and the sky turned red. That was when fear completely consumed her.

The war radically changed her creative work: before, Olena used to write in russian, but after February 24, she switched entirely to Ukrainian. She translated her prose and continued working on her novel.

Because of what she had gone through, she emigrated to Lithuania, where she spent a year working in a library and giving virtual tours of Kyiv and other European capitals, showing the beauty of peaceful life and telling people about the war.