Day 2: Was woken up by sirens and had to hang out in the shelter, which is just an ancient basement. The capital is under siege. I've no idea what happens next.
I've left Kiev and staying at my sister's in the country where it's safer.
Day 4: We're all fine and optimistic. The Russians haven't managed to take any major cities and suffer heavy losses. They expected an easy win so they're in for a big disappointment. They're demoralized and running out of fuel and ammo. Shouldn't be long.
Day 7: I'm fine, except I got sick, possibly with Covid. Spent a few days lying down but I'm better now. We're holding on well and it's nice the whole world applauds our resilience but we still very much need foreign assistance to win.
Day 9: I'm feeling much better but there are others who are more sick. It's relatively quiet here but the cities are still being bombed. There's no time to worry. We also make short informational videos and post them online to try to get through to Russians.
Day 10: We're mostly recovered but yesterday the water pump broke so we had to bring it from the well. The men finally managed to fix it now and I had a very luxurious shower. It's starting to feel like a new normal.
Day 14… I think… Time has somewhat lost its meaning now. Doing fine overall but the exhaustion is taking its toll. Normal life seems so distant, like a blissful dream.
Day 18: It's actually pretty hard to get depressed when you have a 6-year old who randomly leans in to you and whispers to your ear "karapupskin!!!" [s]
Day 19: The village I'm staying at is actually a great archeological site of one of the world's oldest civilizations. Right now many museum artefacts that are like 6,000 years old, books and documents are just lying randomly in the basement. [s]
We didn't go there for the artifacts though. We went to help the local women knit some military camouflage nets. I don't know if they will be any good but it felt good to be a part of this.[s]
Day 20: There's hope that war ends within a week or two since Russian forces have exhausted their resources, losing about a 1/3 of its army already. But each day is innocent lives lost.
The 6-year old loves to read and she reads everything she sees. You have to be careful though coz today she came over to me and bagan to read the headline on the monitor "As of today, 97 children have died in the war" I manged to scroll the page just in time.
The little one doesn't really seem to realize what is going on. Or so we thought. Today she hid from me and told me she teleported to Kiev. When I asked her what she was doing there, she said she killed all the tanks there so we can now go home.
Day 24: I feel more angry and upset than I ever was since the start of war. Our troops miraculously pushed the Russians away form the cities but we can't stop the planes and missiles. Our cites are being leveled. Burned to the ground. People are dying.
The West promised us help but they mostly sent old useless stuff. We badly need aircraft and anti-missile systems to fight back. The West won't give us any or only agrees to give it in exchange for something better. What's the use of NATO and UN if they just stand by and watch?
Day 31: It seems like Russian lost hope of capturing Kiev and focused on the East instead. Maryana (6 yo) with her family left for Kiev today but I decided to stay for longer and make sure it's safe.
Day 38: After 5 weeks in the country, I finally came home today. Hopefully, to stay. It's not 100% safe yet, but nowhere is right now. The road was long and every mile was secured with anti-tank "hedgehogs" and stoic men from the volunteer militias.
Day 40: The Northern front, including Kiev region, has been liberated. It brought relief but also immense pain at the horrors found there. Many people wonder how Hitler and his people managed to commit all the atrocities. This is how.
It's good waking up in your own bed. You can lie in bed for some time and pretend that everything was but a terrible dream.
Day 41: The first few days back home were a nervous wreck but turns out you can get used to things very quickly, even things like sirens several times a day, iron anti-tank hedgehogs outside your window, military men and women everywhere. It's all fine when you know you are 99% safe.
Day 49: The war is stalling but that's somehow even worse as the news all deal with the horrors found in liberated towns. Every day a new mass grave discovered, often just miles from here. Grief is a life state now. I knew humanity can get ugly but never so close to home.
Day 51: The infamous battle ship finally went where it was directed but it got them really pissed off, so we went from 1 siren a day back to 5. Whatever. The embassies who fled before the war even started are coming back and the "hedgehogs" beneath my window are gone.
Day 53: I'm not a military expert and I've never been patriotic, but with the stuff our army's pulling in the past 7 weeks, I'd expect NATO to beg us to enter. Especially considering they expected us to fail within days.
Day 62: Descended into the vault the other day. In the month we've been away, it hasn't changed much. The only additions were a lightbulb and crates with gas masks from I assume the WWII? Hopefully, we won't need them any more. [s]
Day 64: The situation is stable. Battles continue but we're holding our ground. The next few weeks will be decisive. All I hope for is that the besieged civilians will get evacuated, our army will handle the rest.
Spent over 2 hours bracing ourselves from the threat of air strikes. Two explosions were heard, several blocks away. Talk about a ruined evening.
Day 65: Wait, US… you can't give us 1 fighter jet but Taliban gets 78? That's lovely. [s]
Haven't listened to NEWS in weeks. Though uplifting songs is their thing, they're the "you can pass this test!" songs, not "you can survive this genocide!" type.
Day 71: After a few quiet days, it's now sirens for hours a day. The Russians target the railroads and supply lines and try to delay the delivery of the weapons from the West.
I tend to forget the pandemic is still going on. You see, here in Ukraine it ended on February 24. No more masks and mandates. Not a word of it. Thanks, Russia.
Day 73: Russia is poised to celebrate Victory Day so it could announce war and mobilization, claim the territory it already captured, attack Moldova, … idk nuke something? It's the world's shittiest lottery and I'm not sticking around to see the grand reveal.
Day 77: Nothing apocalyptic happened on May 9. It's almost disappointing, really. In the country, with all the bloom and without even the sirens, you tend to forget there's a war going on and it feels wrong. So I'm back home again.
Day 80: They say it's now a war of attrition. At best, we'll be able to counter-attack effectively in a month and it might take months more to reclaim our territory. The city is fairly safe but people still die from missiles once in a while. And I thought life was strange before.
The girl I was teaching Japanese before the war has become a refugee in France. Now I'm teaching her French.
Day 84: I had a dream where I was sitting on a bench with my mother at night, in an unfamiliar town, when missiles started falling right before our eyes, spreading fire, getting closer to us. We didn't run, there was no point. I prepared to die. They never reached us.
Day 87: Today is my birthday and the first to greet me today were Russian missiles announced by sirens. Thankfully, they were greeted in turn by Ukrainian air defence systems.
Day 90: It's been 3 months and the martial law has been extended to another 3 months. It's unlikely to end by then but… We just hope that 3 months from now, the war map will be a very different picture.
Day 92: The following month will be brutal, they say. The landlease will give us weapons but it can take a month or more for it to get here and another few weeks to get the training. Until then, it will just be more death and destruction every day without much gains.
Day 94: At least 30k Russian soldiers lost their lives trying to conquer my land. How many more?
Day 95: Today is City Day, the annual Kyiv festival. I totally forgot about it and I never really loved my city - it's messy and ugly. But today I'm just happy the city still stands.
"They are worse than the Nazis" is not a phrase you expect to hear from multiple elderly people, well, ever.
Day 101: at this point half my mind wants to forget about everything and pretend it's business as usual and the other half feels really guilty about that.