From Sydney, Dasha Sarana calls her dad, Oleksii, in eastern Ukraine. He can hear shelling outside his window – and knows the Russian forces are getting closer.
Her friend in a different part of the city texts – they’re trying to get out with their four-year-old child, but there’s no petrol. The WhatsApp goes silent.
A different friend in Kyiv calls. No one in their apartment is sleeping. They pacify their toddler with cartoons and constantly check the news. Every now and then, the bomb siren interrupts their shock and they run to the basement, hoping it won’t be their building.
Sarana is worried she’ll never see her father again.
At 5am Ukrainian time on Thursday, Oleksii – along with most of the country – woke to news they were being invaded. Within minutes of Russian president Vladamir Putin’s televised address announcing a “special military operation”, they started dropping bombs near major Ukrainian cities.
The Ukraine government announced the country was in the midst of “a full-scale invasion” and declared martial law.
Oleksii had left Sydney for his home city Sievierodonetsk just a week ago – and like many he didn’t think a real war, a full invasion, was possible.
“I told him don’t go, but he said ‘don’t worry, we’ll be fine, nothing will happen’,” Sarana said.
Oleksii’s mother had died of Covid and he wanted to see where she had been buried.
“That’s why he wanted to go,” Sarana said. “He was desperate to go back.”
On the phone he is calm, describing how he can hear bombs drop, exploding buildings near him or guns going off. He has prepared his documents and has a visa to return to Australia if he has to flee – but right now getting out of the city is impossible.
“They are all just sitting there waiting,” Sarana said. “Getting ready to go to the basement. Everyone is checking the news, social media and what other people are saying in different parts of Ukraine.
“Obviously my dad has nowhere to go. We have relatives but they live in the same region, they are in the same situation. There’s shooting everywhere in eastern Ukraine. There’s no safe place to go.”
War has returned to Europe, and for those on the doorstop, this moment has become about survival – about waiting it out, one day at a time.
“Our other friends, they live in the same city, they were trying to escape,” Sarana said. “They were trying to get petrol, trying to get to friends ... in central Ukraine, but we don’t know if they succeeded. We haven’t heard.”
Russian forces are now within kilometres of Kyiv. Normally, the city is vibrant, filled with street vendors, people gathering over coffee and on their way to work. Now it’s quiet. There are cars lined up on major artilleries for kilometres as people desperately try to get out.
The ATMs are empty, and the city seems to have run out of fresh bread. But there is booze.
“Thank god they still have alcohol,” said Rachel Lehmann Ware from her apartment in Kyiv.
Lehmann Ware and her husband are from Huonville, a small town in Tasmania. For the past five years they’ve travelled the world, teaching in international schools. They came to work in Kyiv in July and instantly fell into the rhythm of the city.
“You can’t get out of here. The roads are completely blocked there are literally people walking down highways with their suitcases,” Rachel said.
“Dfat [Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade] have been telling us for a long time, but we could not get out because we had Covid.”
At first they were reluctant to leave their community – Ukrainian families were still sending their children to school, and they needed teachers. When the situation escalated, the couple got Covid. Now they are stuck.
“The [Ukrainians] are amazed we are still here,” Rachel said. “I was talking to a parent last week, she said ‘thank you so much for still being in Ukraine’.
“I said ‘you are sending your child to school, if you are doing that, I will be here’. At the moment, though, shit is getting real. I don’t know what’s going to happen.”
From their apartment, they hear bombs dropping. Loud explosions leave plumes of smoke rising before the horizon.
Lehmann Ware admits it’s nerve-wracking talking to media. No one “knows whose going to rule this country next week” and there’s a concern that people who speak out could be punished.
“The people here are so wonderful. They just want their freedom,” she said.
On Thursday, the prime minister, Scott Morrison, urged the estimated 1,400 Australians who remain in Ukraine to leave if they can.
Some of them have been able to cross the border into Poland.
Australian Pixie Shmigel moved with her boyfriend to Ukriane six months ago to immerse herself in her cultural heritage. After Putin declared war and the reports of shelling came through, the pair realised they needed to leave.
At 4am she rang her mother, Nadia Mencinsky-O’Keefe, in Sydney and booked an Uber to take them across the border.
“The roads were still quiet. She was on the phone to me the whole time,” she said.
“We spoke about the sadness and horror – the man that was driving them would have to go back.”
Mencinsky-O’Keefe’s grandparents had fled Ukraine during the second world war, on the same roads that her daughter had left just days ago.
“[She] was fleeing through the border, exactly where my grandparents would have been. History is repeating itself for the Ukrainian nationals in terms of Russia’s aggression.
“Post-WW2 we thought the international order would protect us all. I thought this wouldn’t happen again.”
Mencinsky-O’Keefe is involved in Australia’s Ukrainian community. She said some had young family members who had signed up to join the militia; they’d written escape plans for their wives and children.
“It’s frightening and distressing,” she said. “It’s difficult to believe in 2022 this is what’s happening.”
She said she welcomed the sanctions, but wanted to see Australia and the international community do more.
“How can Ukraine defend itself against these attacks without substantial military equipment, technical support and medical supplies? We also need humanitarian aid – Ukrainian people are innocent but they will bear terrible suffering and deprivation as a result of this aggression.”
