Natalia Miroshnychenko from Balakliya lived in the besieged town for a week. Her peaceful town was under shellfire day and night. Stocks of food ran out quickly, and staying at home became more and more dangerous every day.

You know, now we are living through the worst thing that could happen.

I have a big family and we all live together in Balakliya. We have our private house there. Two grandchildren, our son and daughter-in-law. We are all very scared. We have never been so scared before.

Our town has been surrounded for a week now. We do not know how to leave the place because there are simply no safe routes.

Our neighbours tried to take their children out and came under fire. A piece of shrapnel pierced through their car. And there were children inside. It is good that everyone is safe. So, they came back. They could not leave.

For this reason, we are staying at home, although life is getting harder every day.

There is heavy shellfire, and it is not possible to buy food and medicines. There was no telephone connection for some time. This is how everything changed in a moment.

Shellfire continues here and bombs are dropped on our heads day and night. We certainly do not leave the basement. It is good that the bomb shelter is close to the house, and during some intervals in shelling, I try to quickly go up to the house, take some food and pour some water. But this is at your own risk and peril. There is simply no way out, you know.

Both options are bad options now. Staying is dangerous, but leaving is even more dangerous.

Especially my youngest granddaughter is very scared. She looks very pale. She is trembling with fear and her heart is pounding when aircrafts fly above us and when guns fire. It is very loud. Everything is shaking and we just pray that this projectile falls somewhere away from us.

We give her some soothing drugs, but valerian pills are of little help when you are under bombing, you know. She is a talented girl. She plays the guitar. She was supposed to have a concert at school exactly on 24 February, when it all started...

Now everything is different. Of course, we believe that peace will come, but it is not clear whether we are able to endure all this horror.