Good afternoon, we are a family from Kharkiv. Me, my husband, our 11-year-old child and our cat. My child, my husband, and I live in Poltava region and rent a one-room apartment. My husband stayed in Kharkiv.

On the first day when the war started, we were woken up by the cat at 4:50 a.m. We heard explosions and realised that the war had started. South Saltovka, less than a kilometre away. They came very close, everything was shaking, people started running somewhere, someone was buying food, my husband went to work, my child and I went to buy food, we stood in Silpo for 5 hours, but we couldn’t buy anything at all. For five days we stayed at home in the corridor with an icon and a cat because it was very scary when Grad hit. Guns are also very scary. It’s very scary when a child of 11 screams: Mum! I don’t want to die! The shelling starts and we cover him with my husband and me. We told him: ‘Yevhen, if something happens to us, take your backpack and run to school, my sister and mother have phone numbers, they live in Bohodukhiv. We stayed like that for five days.

When the house of my husband’s mother was heavily shelled (she lives in the neighbouring district) with Grad rockets, the windows were smashed and cars were damaged, she ran to spend the night (it was already curfew, we could not take her) to the kindergarten, she works there as a teacher. She ran to the basement there. In the morning, we left, across Kharkiv, under fire, to take her, me with the child and the cat out. We went to the Poltava region, which is quieter, but we really want to go home.

I work as an assistant teacher in an inclusive group with special children….

Before the war, we had other priorities, we wanted to go somewhere to relax, improve our child’s health, make repairs and just buy something new…. But now we have different priorities, we live one day at a time. Literally, we live as if it’s the last day, you don’t know where, what, when and where it will arrive…. Life is probably the most important thing in life! God forbid someone to know what war is! Thank you very much!