Dozens of people in Kharkiv have been killed and hundreds wounded in rocket strikes by Russian forces on Monday morning, the Ukrainian interior ministry has said.
Nika, a teacher in Kharkiv, describes the situation the city’s residents find themselves in:
“A few hours ago, they started bombarding a residential neighbourhood with rockets. Then they started bombarding another large residential neighbourhood in another part of the city.
“They stopped about a couple of hours ago. We don’t know which neighbourhood may be next. We [eat meals] wearing our jackets, so we are ready to run into a shelter any second.
“When the neighbourhoods were being hit, we could hear the rockets loudly but our walls were not shaking. We say that if our walls are shaking then we will run to the basement, but so far today, thank God, our walls have not shaken.
“We’re relatively far from these neighbourhoods but we can hear [the attacks]. We’re getting information from local Telegram chats and friends in the areas.
“For our friends in these neighbourhoods, it was obviously horrifying. Many of them sleep in the basement. Some of them don’t have electricity or heating. The windows are broken in many buildings.
“Two nights ago was really horrible, it was even more terrifying than the first night when the war started. We woke up at 12.30am and I cannot even describe the sound we heard. I was lying in my bed thinking that it sounds like Star Wars – I cannot even describe how horrifying the sounds of these explosions or rockets or shelling or planes were.
“Like all other citizens of my city, I woke up on Thursday at around 5am from hearing explosions. And immediately, we understood that our worst expectations had become a terrible reality. [For the] first hours it was very hard to accept it. Not only mentally, but also physically. My body was refusing to accept the danger in which it was in. I was shaking, I wanted to vomit.
“We decided not to leave the city because of the traffic, but we moved to another neighbourhood to stay with friends. We are still lucky because we still have electricity, hot water and internet connection.
“We try not to panic, we try to think logically that if we hear something that is really close, the basement is five metres away, so we will have time to run. We try to calm ourselves with this kind of logical thinking.
“Of course we are scared. I think my parents, they’re not as scared as I am, but I’m very scared of losing my life. I’m very scared I will be killed in this war. But despite that we are very, very angry and the feeling of hatred is just palpable. We just want to win this war.
“We also feel extremely proud of our army, the way they fight, the way they protect us. It’s so inspiring. And I think our army is the only [thing] that helps me to keep having faith and believe that everything is going to be all right.
“I think the feelings that we feel right now are anger and proudness, and of course some fear, but also a lot of hope.”
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