‘The war is not just near us, but it is right here because everything flies past us. We hear and see everything’

We put up these shields in order to protect ourselves from the blast wave and small shell fragments. I set up this structure for that purpose. It is a scary thing – to wake up in the middle of the night… We woke up at half past one in the morning and a shelling began, quite a heavy one. It does not really save you much, but at least to protect the windowpanes. This is from small fragments basically. If something big flies in, everything will be smashed to pieces here.

Mayorsk is about three kilometres away from here, and Zaytseve is five kilometres away. We hear everything. Sometimes we see how it flies above us. That is scary. You wait for it any second... We hear it every day. If a shell pit is one meter deep and tree meters wide, it is scary, isn’t it? And when the kids run in panic screaming, it is very scary.

I would not wish anyone to experience this. Even our government, you know. We live on somehow. We do not live, but rather survive. This is not life. It cannot be called life.

To pay for all this and provide for the family – it is not that easy. I am the only one who works [in the family]. My wife has undergone the second surgery. She has oncology.

It started when a car drove and the bridge exploded. No one expected that to happen. Everything was peaceful and here it happened… We even crouched. The bridge used to connect Dzerzhynsk and Mayorsk. It was a very heavy explosion. We were all outdoors at that moment. Our smaller kid went running and screaming. I said: ‘Sonny, don't be afraid, we're all here.’ I had to soothe him somehow.

We used to work and have been raising our kids. We hoped for something, but as for now, I don’t even know what to think. The war is here. Not just near us, but right here because we hear everything. We see everything and everything [every shell] flies past us.

The worst thing was when we were staying in the cellar at half past one in the morning and we felt like in the cartoon. The house perched on chicken legs. It was shaking from one side or the other. The blast wave is a very scary thing. It is indescribable. It just needs to be felt to understand it.

I dream of raising my five kids, of getting them well educated. We would like to live in a good country. Is it good to have all these hostilities? I think this is not good. This is the last thing that can be done.