A first-hand account from a brave Ukrainian having their hometown taken over by the invading army.
I am from one of the towns in Ukraine.
It is a small, quiet and very green town in the south of our country. My town is famous for its fertile soils, fields and amazing nature. This is land of tomatoes and watermelons.
But on the twenty-fourth of February, our peaceful life was destroyed by the Russian army.
At 6:03 a.m. my husband woke me up by saying “It has started”.
“WHAT has started? What is going on? Today is my day off so I want to sleep. Don’t bother me”, I said. In a few minutes, he repeated that the big war had started.
Then war planes started flying and the first explosions were heard. Automatically we began packing our rucksacks and called our families and friends. We decided to stay in our town because it was dangerous to leave it. We bought some food and water and went home to wait for the news. There is a bridge that connects two towns Kherson and Oleshky. And this bridge is the only way to get directly to Kherson from the Crimea. So the main battle scenes were right on this bridge. The suburbs were hurt most of all.
As we lived not far from this bridge we could hear all the terrible, terrifying explosions, and shooting. We couldn’t sleep at night because our windows were shaking and loud noises were all the time.
The next day we made a decision to move to my aunt who lives in another district of our town. It was a safer place to live in. There were we, my aunt, her dog, three cats, a snail and a lot of fish. We helped her to look after their pets.
First days we were really scared so we couldn’t eat, or sleep. We just read and watched the news. Our minds were paralyzed. Agiotage started. It led to food shortages and rising prices. But some shop owners gave food to people for free. At the same time, there were marauders. There weren’t food supplies, stocks decreased and prices rose. On the first of March Kherson was completely occupied by Russian militaries.
It was the starting point of our total occupation.
Soldiers broke into main government buildings. They stole food at our local shops. There were a lot of block stations in each district of the town. They could stop, check your documents, and answer different questions. Now they kidnap people, come to their houses, take away their laptops, phones, and personal things. They behave immorally.
Life in occupation is very difficult. Shops and banks are closed(only a couple of them work), so you need only cash to buy food at the market. Prices are very high. For example, bananas cost 30 hryvnias per kilo and now they cost 120 hryvnias per kilo; eggs cost 15 hryvnias and now they cost 65 hryvnias; prices of household chemicals increased by 3-4 times. Also, there are very long queues all the time. Pharmacies don’t work. People don’t have medicine, only due to volunteers’ help, they can get them.
During the first-month people held massive meetings to show their pro-Ukrainian position but after some time Russian soldiers began using their weapons against the citizens.
Life ceases to exist at 8 p.m. All people are in their homes. They turn off the light not to attract attention because Russian soldiers are walking around and checking the houses.
The whole town is empty. It is very heartbreaking. We are like prisoners.
“breathe deeply”. We can’t live our full lives. Periodically Internet and mobile connections are not available. Now, for more than two weeks we haven’t got a mobile connection.
We are very exhausted but try to be strong.
We are waiting for de-occupation.
