During the full-scale invasion, Liudmyla and her husband lived in Kyiv. "Husband woke me up. We prepared water, food, medicine, documents. We sort of prepared, but this moment, when everything started, it was a shock. Sick parents. They were close. We did not plan to leave. We looked at the situation. We took care of our parents.

Every day I saw how Kyiv was leaving. The flow did not stop. When we went outside, there was hardly a single person. Although there were a lot of people in our neighbourhood before the war. The feeling was that you were alone in the whole district. People hid in the subway. Someone sat at home and did not go outside. Everything was closed. 

On the second or third day, the coffee shops opened. There was bread. The city was empty, but everyone was doing something. Trenches appeared. Hedgehogs were being made. There was unity. There was black smoke from the Zhytomyr highway. The body shuddered from the shots. There was smog for two weeks. 

When we left, we saw completely destroyed houses. Burnt and shot cars. The metal was crumpled like paper. And there were people there," said Liudmyla, a resident of Kyiv.