‘I tried to make the TV louder so that the children would not hear the war’

Hanna Yakymchenko, 33 years old:

Before the war, everything was good. It was fine, but when the war began, everything changed here. Some people left and some stayed. Our street is completely silent. Everyone wants it calm and quiet, not to suffer from shells, from shell fragments. Three shells landed here, at our place. All the three at the same time. It hit our neighbours’ house. It hit our hayloft too and two windows were damaged.

It burst up together with a stack of firewood so that even our neighbours’ window was broken and our window was broken too. And the second shell pit is there. The shell landed and damaged the vine with fragments. The garage was completely destroyed and the shed too. Just the ruins remained. I do not know how to restore it. My mum and I will not afford to fully restore it all.

We somehow did not even think, we did not suspect what could happen. We heard that [military] vehicles were coming, we even saw it. We saw a convoy moving from the side of the fields, but we thought it would pass by. And then, I just don’t remember what date it was, in the middle of the night, a shell hit between the shed and the garage.

But where can you run in the middle of the night? Nowhere to run. I took them all aside, all together, to avoid being hit by those shell fragments. I hid them in the corner, kept them in the corner under the table. Where to run? Because we could not make it to the cellar to hide there. Who knows from which side it [shell] will drop and where it will land? And the worst thing is that there is not any man’s support and help. Who could be near the little kids if, God forbid, something happens to me?

Uliana Yakymchenko, 6 years old:

There is shellfire and mines. The window was broken, when shells fell here. We were in the cellar. We stayed in the cellar long. And if it does not bang, we can come out of the cellar. We can leave the cellar and be out until something hits again there.

Hanna:

We have not seen anything like that before, but our kids see it now. I somehow tried to divert their attention. I said, ‘It is somewhere far away.’ I tried to make the TV louder for them not to hear it.

Once three shells flew above our heads when we were on our way to the kindergarten. It seemed like we made it there well, but then the teacher called: ‘Could you come as Uliana felt bad and she started to vomit.’ It was because of fright and stress. But, thank God, after that case this did not happen to us again.

The main thing is to have peace back. This is what is most important. So that it is calm and quiet, and we do not hear shellfire or falling shells at night. So that nobody suffers from this grief, people do not suffer from the war. The main thing is peace and calm.