The night of Oct. 10. Once again, Russia attacks Ukraine with ballistic missiles and kamikaze drones.
They target energy facilities — aiming at our heat, our water, our light. At life itself.
Kyiv trembles from explosions.
On the left bank, where I live, it’s been dark for hours. My phone is down to its last percent. My Samoyed, Kas, is anxious — I scratch his ears so he won’t hear too much.
In the morning, we’ll have to go outside. The elevator doesn’t work. We live on the 14th floor. Kas stops on the third landing and looks up at me, refusing to move. One treat — one stair. That’s how we climb back home.
I’m moderating an event in the morning. Right now, I just want to sleep. But I’m grateful that I still have a place to sleep. Hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians don’t.
According to Ukraine’s Ministry for Communities and Territories Development, Russia has destroyed 37,000 apartment buildings, more than 320,000 private homes and 700 student dormitories.
But behind those numbers are not just walls. There was the smell of morning coffee. Children were born there. Mothers read bedtime stories there. Family photos hung on the walls. Geraniums bloomed on the windowsills. Someone took their first steps after being wounded.
People lived there — and loved there. Now there are only ruins, smoke and silence.
If you put it all together, that’s four Milans. Or fourteen Venices. Entire cities — gone.
I am Nadiia from Kyiv. I don’t write this to be pitied. I write to remind a tired world that the war goes on.
And it’s not only about Ukraine. Because evil, if left unpunished, grows. It knows no borders — like darkness chasing the light.
So while Ukraine holds the line, the world must hold the light — in our hearts, in our morals, in our faith. Because only a nation that has lost its soul can destroy another. And that’s why humanity and spirituality remain the strongest weapons against the dark.