My alarm clock in the city of Syeverodonetsk in the Luhansk state of eastern Ukraine was the thunder of artillery and shelling that starting to fall on the city. Outside the hotel, reporters gathered for a war council that looked like something out of a movie. The British reporters expressed a strong desire to stay. "You're just panicking," they said condescendingly to their Ukrainian guides, who were worried about their children's lives in cities like Kyiv and Kharkiv.
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The decision to return to Kyiv was made quickly, and within minutes we were on route to the capital, a nine-hour trip on the unstable roads of the eastern part of the country. Kyiv had already been bombed at that point. It was comforting to turn onto the highway, but very soon that turned out to be a mistake – a shell landed in the middle of the road, not far from the vehicle in which my Ukrainian escorts and I were riding.
Other than some ringing in the ears, no damage was done. But later on, we encountered a horrific scene – a car whose occupants had been hit by shelling. Along the way, we passed airfields and military sites that were on fire after Russian airstrikes. Above, jet engines roared. In the village of Novoshtovske in the Luhansk district, located a few hundred meters from the front with the pro-Russian separatist forces, there were reports of heavy shelling that morning.
"There is no electricity or water, phone lines are cut off, and the shelling doesn't stop," said Dasha, who works in the village as an English teacher. "We're scared and anxious about what will happen net."
In the village of Andriivka in eastern Ukraine, civilians were lining up to use the only ATM in town and stock up at the little shop.
"Everything is so scary, but we need to take care of ourselves," said Louisa, who was waiting to make her purchases. "Our army will do everything to defend us. I want the world to watch and see what's happening to us. It could happen to any country."
Long lines of cars waited to fill up at the gas station, and most stations in eastern Ukraine had already run out.
Maidan Square in Kyiv, where demonstrations put Ukraine on a collision course with Moscow in 2014, was empty. Troops were deployed around it, and a nighttime curfew was in effect. The shops, malls, and restaurants around the lovely square were all closed, and other than a small shwarma stand, there was no place for a hungry foreigner to eat. Above us, fighter jets screamed by.
"I have nothing to fear," said Ibrahim, the shwarma vendor, originally from Sudan. "I'm a little person. What do I care if it's Russia or Ukraine, or whoever, in charge here? I'll probably keep living the same way."
Oksana, a Kyiv resident who was waiting behind me, struggled to hold back tears.
"Everything we've worked for in the last eight years will be for nothing if we lose. Our liberty, our independence, our freedom of speech. We'll be another Russia, just with a different flag, like Belarus," she says.
As darkness descended on the city and the curfew approached, the few foreigners gathered in the hotel, hoping to find a way to be evacuated the next morning. The world has left Ukraine to its fate, and now even journalists are afraid to stay.
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