On Sunday, Russia launched nearly 600 attack drones and dozens of missiles across Ukraine. These numbers are just statistics — until an explosion shatters your window and stops your heart.
Four people died in Kyiv. Among them was a 12-year-old girl. She was crushed by a concrete slab from her own apartment building, a place that should have been her fortress. Her mother is now fighting for her life in the hospital. One moment — a family. The next — a chasm.
When the sirens sounded, I, like thousands of others, went to the safest place in my apartment — the corridor. With me was my dog, Kas, a white Samoyed usually full of joy. But not at night, when the Shahed drones (a type of Iranian-made kamikaze drone) fly. He trembles as if from cold, and I sit on the floor, covering his ears with my hands, trying to protect him from the approaching roar. There’s no time to run to a shelter, and leaving him alone is impossible. In those moments of fear, there are no boundaries between human and animal; we are simply two living beings clinging to survival.
The sound of a Shahed is unforgettable. A relentless, grim buzzing, like a swarm of metallic wasps. You sit in the dark, listening: first, the buzz high above; then — the explosion. Sometimes far away. Sometimes so close it feels as if death itself is breathing beside you.
This is how our nights in Kyiv pass. Children cling to parents. Animals seek shelter with their humans. Entire families, united by fear and hope, huddle in corridors, stairwells and basements. Everyone waits for morning, counting the minutes between strikes.
In the morning, we step outside. The city is wounded: crushed cars, shattered windows, glass and debris everywhere. And amid the ruins — people. People clearing rubble, patching broken windows, starting repairs. Life stubbornly pushes through. And amid it all, the darkest news: those who did not survive to see this sunrise.
I am from Kyiv. This is my city. This is how life looks now: night — the buzz of death and explosions; day — resilience, tinged with grief.
Every day, Ukraine lives under attack. Every day, civilians die — children, parents, neighbors. The greatest injustice is that death has become routine. Yet even in this inferno, we learn to value life as never before. Every morning you wake. Every familiar voice. Every moment of peace — that is already a victory.
This is our strength: to keep living, loving and believing where the enemy wants only darkness and despair. We find light not despite the darkness but within its very depths when we hold together.