Viktoriia’s Story
On February 24, at 5.30 am, I was awakened by a phone call:
“Vika, the war has begun...!!!!!”
I was lost for a few seconds, then quickly collected the documents and awakened the children. They were crying with fear in their eyes. I dressed, called a taxi, waited 40 minutes for the car while hearing explosions outside the window.
We went to my sister’s place, the drive lasting for ages, and finally we arrived. We entered her apartment and didn’t know what to do. We did not prepare and didn’t know how to behave when there is a war in your country, in your little town 😭.
The explosions got louder and we rushed to the basement of a multistory apartment building. We did not plan to stay there long but ended up being there for nine days, nine long and terrible days. More and more shots were fired every day, then the vacuum bombs dropped. The building moves when these bombs explode, terrifying our children.
We can’t sleep but we started to get used to it. We briefly went out during the day, helped people with food and water but at one moment, I realized that my children had reached their limit. We decided to leave our town. Our house had already been bombed and there was nothing left to lose.
