Ukrainian refugee Marichka Kritenko, who headed west after leaving her home in Kyiv with her husband and cat, says fleeing from a conflict is like being in an emergency on a plane.
Having sorted out their living arrangements in the city of Rivne, Ms Kritenko and her husband are beginning to volunteer their services and provide help to other displaced Ukrainians.
"As is the rule on aeroplane, first put the oxygen mask on yourself and then on the child," Ms Kritenko told the ABC.
"Here we have good living conditions. We rented a big flat and now have an opportunity to host our friends from Bucha."
According to the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), 7.1 million Ukrainians have been internally displaced since the start of the invasion.
Most of them have settled in the country's west and are attempting to get on with their lives as best they can.
Among them is Galiya Faskhutdinova, who has found a relatively safe place to stay in the western Ukraine town of Ternopil.
She left Kyiv with her mother when Russia first began shelling the Ukrainian capital in February.
Ms Faskhutdinova describes her temporary new home, which had a population of about 220,000 before the invasion, as "cute" but she says she misses her hometown.
While she is grateful to the relatives of a friend who have given her a place to live, their home is on the outskirts of the city and she feels isolated.
"I just want to go home," she told the ABC.
"I'm not used to this. I am used to having an active life in a big city, but I am always in the apartment."
Ms Faskhutdinova added that life in Ternopil was not completely safe.
She said air raid sirens usually sounded twice a day, sending people down into bomb shelters to hide.
"We are not allowed to leave our houses after 10pm and are obliged to turn off the lights at 9pm," she said.
Town transformed into 'metropolis'
In Uzhhorod, on the border with Slovakia, local journalist Denis Goncharenko said the influx of refugees had transformed the town, tripling the population and sending prices for accommodation and food skyrocketing.
Mr Goncharenko said the town, which previously had a population of about 100,000, now "feels like a metropolis".
"People stand in line because everything is busy inside," he said.
To cope with the sharp increase of people in the city and complex logistics, a coupon system has been introduced for refugees.
He said people could trade in their coupons for three meals a day, and people usually waited in lines for about 20 minutes.
"This is not convenient, but local authorities need to account for the money they spend," he said.
Despite this, Mr Goncharenko said the new arrivals were beginning to "acclimatise" and trying to achieve a sense of normalcy again.
Ms Kritenko said more than 50,000 internally displaced people (IDP) had already officially arrived in Rivne before her family.
"We were not registered, which means that the number of internally displaced people can be twice as much unofficially," she said.
The town previously only had a population of 240,00.
"Now we have here a lot of traffic jams," she said.
"When I use taxi services, I am almost always driven by non-local drivers who are refugees from other Ukrainian cities and were able to earn money by transporting here."
She added the local government was making sure there was no price gouging in stores.
"They do not allow businesses to overstep the limits in pricing," she said.
Locals, refugees help with shelter and food
One of the locals helping to accommodate the newcomers is former hairdresser Rymma Mytrak who organised a shelter for 80 IDPs within days of the war starting.
Her village, Velykyi Bereznyi to the north of Uzhhorod, rallied to convert an unused storage facility into a hostel.
"I made an announcement on Facebook about my plans to start a hostel. Four days later, we were already able to start hosting people," she told the UN.
Ms Mytrak was helped in her efforts by her husband — a former military chaplain — and a group of willing volunteers that grew in number after the first families began to arrive.
To manage the work involved in hosting, feeding, and taking care of so many people, Ms Mytrak, her husband and two children moved into a room at the hostel which doubles as her office.
Further north in Lviv, three young refugees from districts near Kyiv have opened a tiny coffee shop in one of the busiest streets in the city centre.
With two months of free rent, they are determined to make the best of it, serving coffee, tea and pies.
"We make great pies, we make coffee, teas and we help our people, we help our army by making donations from our profits," said Serhiy Stoyan, 30, who has a cooking show on YouTube and masterminded the project.
Mr Stoyan, who named the coffee shop after his missing cat Kiit, said their financial situation was difficult when they first arrived in Lviv, but the coffee shop was now busy and attracting new customers every day.
He was hopeful they would be able to pay the rent and keep the business going.
Attempt to regain normalcy
Some of Ukraine's IDPs have been lucky enough to maintain some semblance of a normal life, despite being uprooted.
Karina Kikalova fled her home in Kyiv with her parents, husband and two young children and ended up in Ternopil.
Ms Kikalova said she was grateful for the safety afforded in western Ukraine.
She told the ABC she appreciated the fresh air in Ternopil, the supportive and kind people and the ability to live in a fully furnished house, which was offered by her father's colleague.
Her family members' lives had not changed much since they settled into the new town, she said.
During the days, her husband continues to work online as a lawyer while she supports her sons as a stay-at-home mother, as she was before the war.
Her two sons, aged eight and 10, attend classes online.
"They are used to online school since COVID," she said.
Ms Kikalova hopes she can return to Kyiv in a couple of weeks, and that her parents will be able to return to their home in Irpin in a month.
"We are staying here in the hope we'll be able to get back home, but our lives will never be the same," she said.
ABC/AP
