Seven-year-old Makar from Mariupol recorded a video address to the russian invaders who destroyed his home. Constant explosions outside the window frightened the boy that is why he was able to record his “thanks to the liberators” video only from the fifth attempt.

For more than 20 days, the family lived in the bomb shelter and cooked food on a fire. Makar celebrated his birthday under shellfire.

Makar’s mother, Iryna, said that she really wanted to show her son’s video address to the whole world, so that people could know what happened in Mariupol and what conditions the children had to live in.

Our war began eight years ago, in 2014. In fact, people tend to forget about it. But when the full-scale armed hostilities started on 24 February, we were all at home. The war began at my place. My husband phoned me and said, “The war has started”. I asked him, “What do you mean by “the war”?” Nobody could believe it to the end. That this could happen in the 21st century. Well, sometimes I am asked, “Why did not you leave at once, right away? Why some people left on 24 February and you stayed?” We simply could not believe it then, that such things could happen. That the city would be destroyed like that, that Ukrainians would be killed. It still looks mind-boggling to us.

We live… We lived in the city centre, in the very centre, near our city council’s building, and so we remained there all the time. On 6 March, our house was hit by shellfire for the first time. We lived on the fifth floor – that was the top floor… It happened during the daytime, right when I was feeding the children. My younger daughter. When I heard that shells were flying (we were eating at that time), I shouted to Makar, “Run to the living room!” Because that room did not have any windows. He ran to the living room while Sasha was sitting on a high baby chair. It was a chair for feeding and she was fastened to it.

At that moment, an explosion thundered and I was just thrown onto the child, on Sasha.

At that moment, I just did not understand what happened. A neighbouring flat… Well, and I… grabbed the children. My husband ran back home. Before it happened, he went outside to get some water. And we went down to the bomb shelter. Since that day, we lived in the bomb shelter for three weeks. That is, we lived there, in Mariupol, for one month, under bombing. You know, to a certain extent, we were lucky to be in our bomb shelter because it was not just a basement. It was a specialized bomb shelter. The house was old, built in 1953, and in addition to the basement, we also had a bomb shelter with a metal door, with exit to the street.

It happened so that people in our section of the house, where we all lived on friendly terms (and we had some neighbours with whom we just exchanged “hello” during our peaceful, pre-war life), became much closer, and everyone helped each other. We all lived in friendship there, but truly speaking, on top of one another, as we were cramped for space there. There were 18 of us: 15 adults and 3 children. Two of them were my kids and there was one more girl, Milanka, who was five years old. As everyone else, we cooked our food on open fire. There was nothing really unusual for me. However, it was very difficult for me to live in that vacuum.

I did not understand what was happening. I did not understand if people knew about the developments in Mariupol at all. That we were being killed here, and that there was no food and water. I could not understand why our army did not come to the rescue and why we were not taken out of here.

And this vacuum, in which we found ourselves, without any connection to the outer world at all, that was scary for me. At some point, I had some thoughts of despair in my mind, that no one would come, and how could it be so, eight years… We are patriots here. Mariupol residents always stood out for, always fought for Ukraine as a whole – but there is nobody. Well, this was what we thought while still there. When we got out, I realized that the whole world was talking about Mariupol, that nobody forgot about us, and that now everybody was crying out about it. But back then, it was scary to live in the information vacuum. The only connection with the outside world was… An acquaintance who came to visit us from time to time… He had a radio and we tuned it in to the Ukrainian wave. So that is how I could hear, “This number of buses departed from Berdiansk to go to Zaporizhzhia.”

Tears were rolling down my cheeks as I said, “But how? Where? Where to run to? And how can I get there in order to take my children out of here?”

I did not understand this but there was some insane desire to break free out of this hell. This was very hard. It is very hard to be there with small children who are also scared. You explain this situation to them. I did not lie to them and told them everything as it was, that we had the war, that there was shelling, that bombs exploded. Certainly, they could not fully assess this situation and so they started, “I want to go out and take a walk.” Some child’s whims. You are faced with shelling, you have to survive, you need to somehow feed yourself, and in addition to that, you have those childish tantrums and things like that. You need to somehow pull yourself together, brace yourself and hold on, hold on for the sake of your children, for the sake of yourself, which was all very difficult, in fact. The situation we found ourselves in was the following.

My parents live in the 23rd district. When the war began, we kept coming to them, to the 23rd district, during the day to check if they were fine. My parents are quite elderly people and have poor health. That is why we kept visiting them while it was still possible. There was no telephone connection at all and it was impossible to ask anybody where the fighting was and what… 11 March was the last time when I saw my parents. We came there, to the 23rd micro-district, and got in the severe fighting, in the thick of it. The fighting was going on there. We brought them some food and made sure they were alive. There were nine-storey residential buildings (multi-flat blocks) there and they were simply shaking.

I thought those houses would just fold in now and we would be simply buried under them.

We got into the car and drove out of there, while the fighting continued. We were driving out to the sounds of shelling and returned to the city centre. That was the last time when I was in the 23rd micro-district. Later, on 14 March, my husband attempted to get to the 23rd micro-district again but at that time, all passenger cars were ordered to turn back already in the 20th micro-district and were not let through. The only connection with other city districts was when somebody managed to pass through somewhere and shared some information. We then could learn what happened here and there. We also had a huge queue for [drinking] water, when several thousand people queued up at the water tank, and we could get some information, some news, there about what was happening in some neighbouring houses. However, it was insanely scary to be there because everyone and everything could come under shelling.

My husband came under shellfire several times, exactly when staying in those queues. People dropped their water, their bottles, and ran away in all directions, and not all of them could escape. After the middle of March, perhaps closer to 17-18 March, the circle Mariupol city was in was getting narrower and narrower. Since we lived on the fifth floor, I, like kamikaze, ran up to the top floor all the time, while it was still possible. I ran upstairs and watched either from the balcony or from the window, where something was burning and if I could see the 23rd district today. Because there were days when everything was on fire and the 23rd district was simply not seen. You just look through Novoselivka in that direction, through this 23rd district, and cannot see it. I watched the area behind “Tysiacha Dribnyts” store and saw the houses on fire.

That was scary. I then went downstairs and shared this information with our neighbours, “The fire is there and over there.” That’s it. There were repeated incoming artillery attacks and the fire broke out.

The fire started and our house was on fire for two days. For two days, the fire faded and then kindled again. And when somebody came and told us that the fifth floor was on fire… Oh, I realized that this was our flat.

I went out and went to the military. I told them, “I live on the fifth floor. Can I go and take a look?” They accompanied me. I stood there for some time and watched how everything was burning. I still had some hopes, you know, that something would remain… Because I saw how my footwear was burning down, but I still thought that maybe we could rescue at least something there, in some way. Well, when the soldiers left and we were left alone, we went upstairs and saw this picture, that not only our flat was gone, but also the interior walls were gone. They vanished. We had one flat on the entire fifth floor, and absolutely nothing was left of it.

I said to Makar, “Son, we don’t have our home, we don’t have our flat anymore.” Makar said, “I want to have a look at it.”

We went upstairs with him. Not on the day when I had my birthday, but when… the next day. That’s it.

I am Makar and today I am seven years old. And this is my home. Thank you to the “liberators” from russia for doing this. For what you can see now.

Well, I don’t know from what attempt we managed to record this video because the machine-gun bursts did not stop. You see, when I was there, I firmly believed that we would be able to get out of there. And since I did not understand what was happening around us, and if people knew about us at all, I knew it for sure: once we get out, I would definitely show to people how we lived there, how our children lived and in what conditions they were staying there. It was very important for me. And the message this video conveys is specifically for other Ukrainians to see what is happening in Mariupol.

We were staying in a bomb shelter. I remember how I was sitting on this chair and tears were rolling down my cheeks. And everyone was saying to me, “Ira, don’t cry. You have kids and you cannot cry.”

I said, “Oh snap! Let me lament at least in some way.” Because not only my flat was on fire but my job was on fire too. I had been taking photographs of newly born babies for seven years. I did this using some props. That is, a basket, some clothes and the like, and I stored all this at home. And all this burned down, my seven years of work. Well, basically, everything burned down. I lost my home, my city and my job, without which I simply cannot live now… To start working now without my things that burned down there. This is such a pain…

I played on my tablet. I had three Minecraft games on it and I played in survival mode. Looks like dynamites destroy houses. These are like shells – they are dynamites. These are the tanks. The tanks launch dynamites, they fly and destroy houses. The russian military, well, they shoot, and these are bombs too. It can kill a person too. Well, there is no war in Minecraft. And there is no war in Zaporizhzhia now, that is why I feel at home here. We start our life from scratch. We do not have anything. From zero. We do not have anything, like most Mariupol residents, neither a flat nor a house. We are certainly thankful for the humanitarian aid, which feeds us and gives us clothes now, indeed… My husband is looking for a job. I myself am looking after the kids, as Sashenka… She is two years old and we do not have anybody to look after her, and obviously, kindergartens do not work now. Makar is a schooler now. We have registered him for a school. He has been studying for a week now. It is a home-based schooling for now. And you know, now we have got an illusion of things being as usual, life being as usual. Online schooling, as was during the COVID pandemic.

It is such an illusion of normal life – he is studying at school, and just a little time has left till the end of the year, just a little bit to finish the year, to finish his first grade. He is our first grader. So, we will move on, life will go on.

I very much hope that no hostilities come here. I am confident in our victory because we are… Well, I don’t know. I think that our people have a very strong spirit. We will definitely win. The truth is on our side. We will win for sure. I am staying here in Zaporizhzhia and I do not want to go to any other country. I do not want to migrate anywhere. I want to stay here. I want to live in Ukraine, in peaceful Ukraine and with our victory. I don’t need anything else. I have a dream. I used to have different dreams but now I have one dream – I want Mariupol to be back to Ukraine. Let it be these ruins, these bits and pieces, but they will be ours because this is our land. Let it remain some kind of monument or something, a monument to this injustice, to this cruelty, so that somebody could see it and never ever do it again. But this is our land and I really want it to be returned to us in the near future.