Photo: ANATOLII STEPANOV / AFP / Getty Images
It was night but I was awake when I received a message from a colleague about Vladimir Putin’s speech announcing the invasion.
Immediately the explosions began. I could listen to them from my house and people located in different parts of the city began to send messages to our WhatsApp group about attacks that were happening near them.
Realizing that the Ukrainian capital, Kiev, was under attack—and not just the front line in the east of the country—was a big shock.
There is no longer any safe place in Ukraine.
The biggest fear of the people here is losing electricity and the internet not working, because then we would be really isolated.
Other fear is that the bridges over the Dnieper river will be bombed , leaving the city divided: the east and the west.
The explosions lasted for about 30 minutes.
I dressed my son in 10 years. We had breakfast, sitting as far away from the windows as possible, but he was so scared that he threw up.
We brought a candle and some water to our warehouse, which will be our refuge if things get worse.
There are huge queues tooutside supermarkets near my house and at ATMs, many of which have run out cash.
As well Some gas stations have run out of fuel and have had to close. There is an atmosphere of panic now that we know the whole country is under attack.
The roads out of the city are blocked by traffic, but it is a dangerous trip: those who chose to take the car could easily run out of fuel far from home.
The trains are running, but there are crowds trying to get a seat.
Airspace Ukrainian is closed, under Martial Law introduced by President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Not only military objectives have been destroyed: we have photographs of residential buildings in various cities of the country that have received impacts.
The Russian bombardment has affected all regions of the country. Even in Lviv, near the border with Poland, the sirens sounded this morning and a colleague had to take shelter in a bomb shelter.
Another colleague took his family out of Kiev in the hope of avoiding possible bombardments.
The countryside may be safer than the city, but in a country attacked from the north, east and south, there is no longer a really safe place here.
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