Right up to the very last moment, I refused to believe it was possible – that Russia would attack us. Although my friend Alyona told me back in November that her brother, who lives in the UK, warned her that there were rumours about Russia preparing for a big war in Ukraine. I’d simply brushed the thought away. I went to the Berlinale, and on February 12, just before the screening of the Nick Cave documentary This Much I Know To Be True, I read the news that the Americans were again warning about an imminent Russian invasion. It said the invasion would happen on February 16, the day I was due to travel back home to Sumy from Berlin. Yet, though nothing actually happened on February 16, my anxiety was growing. I spoke with my mum about it and neither of us could believe that Russia would invade. “What?! A real war? Like during WWII? It’s impossible!” On February 24, I woke up at half past five in the morning, and lay in bed for a while. Then my husband, who was reading the news on his mobile phone, told me: “Get up and get dressed!” Confused, I asked: “What should I wear?” – “Whatever’s comfortable,” he answered. I put on my jeans and a warm jumper; I made coffee. My husband woke up our son. Then we heard someone knocking at the neighbour’s door. My husband went out on the landing, and saw our neighbour, a policeman, dressed in his uniform and carrying a rifle. “It’s… it’s… war. Are you staying here or are you going to evacuate?” he asked. He was pretty anxious, understandably: he has two young children. We picked up our rucksacks, which we had packed a few days ago with biscuits, bottles of water, ID documents and warm socks, and left our apartment to go to my mother-in-law’s house. Our cat Marsik meowed in his carrying case all the way to the house. It was 7 am, but the streets were full of people. Many people walked in groups, carrying bags and rucksacks. There were queues to the cash machines. People were withdrawing cash, because the shops stopped accepting bank cards. Bread disappeared from the shelves very fast.
We reached my mother-in-law’s house. The TV was on and we started watching the Ukraine 24 channel, which was broadcasting the first news of the war. They said not only Chernihiv, Kharkiv and Melitopol in the east, but also the city of Ivano-Frankivsk in the west of the country were under attack. They said five Russian planes had been shot down. Ideleted my film chat and subscribed to the local Sumy Telegram channels, which were publishing up-to-date news and info. At around 2 pm we saw three armoured vehicles driving along our street, tucked away deep in the heart of the city. At 5 pm we learnt that Russian tanks were moving along Kharkivskaya Street. My son checked a video broadcast from the city web-cams on his phone and said: “Look – they’re driving past the Sadko fountain and turning towards the train station”. Later in the evening we heard the news that there was heavy fighting for the local cadet school. At night the sky in that district turned red, a church was on fire. This very particular ominous red colour which we, Ukrainians, remember very well from the days of Maidan. |
Natalia SerebryakovaSumy, Ukraine (Translated from Russian by Maria Choustova and Jonathan Romney)
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