My cousin messaged me this morning to tell me he slept through bombing and explosion noise last night.
He lives in Chisinau, in Moldova, less than 160 km from Odessa, where Russian troops landed before commencing a full-scale attack on Ukraine from multiple directions.
He vaguely remembers the sounds, he was asleep.
And maybe so were the families living on the Russian border, and their children who learned about bulky tanks and armed soldiers before their time.
Or maybe they were among the lucky ones, who managed to escape before their homes were turned into a battlefield.
I have spoken to a Ukrainian mum today, who was praying that her two sons and their families are still alive.
The woman, who is now a cleaner in Nottingham, does not know what happened to them, but one thing she is certain of is that Derhachi - the town they currently live in - has been destroyed.
But like many other Ukrainians who have now found themselves thousands of kilometres away from their loved ones, she can only keep praying and working through the hours that seem to go slower and slower.
After weeks, months of growing tensions and intimidating troops at Ukraine’s borders, there is no doubt over the gravity of this moment.
As odd as this might sound, I just hope that these tremors are felt across Europe. I hope people do not think of Ukraine as a small, faraway, insignificant country, as Putin likes to describe it.
In fact, he probably thinks any Eastern European would be better off being part of his empire.
It is all I talk about nowadays with my family who are spread around Romania and Moldova.
Luckily, Romania, like many other countries in the area, are part of Nato. This has been reassuring until Putin's apparent threat of nuclear war.
But would he do it? If there is one thing I have been repeatedly told by my very Slavic relatives is that Vladimir Putin is remarkably clever, and that no one is even able to imagine how far he would be able to go to accomplish his dream of creating the big(ger) Russia.
When would he have enough? Again, as Slavic folks, like to say "as ever small Russia, that never has enough land or resources".
This is just one of the many ordeals in Eastern Europe that happened because of someone's ego to have it all.
Putin, when elected as president of Russia, made his intentions clear, with many condemning the annexation of Crimea in 2014 and considering it a violation of international law.
But I take it he did it as a 'selfless act of patriotism', right?
Now, I just hope that people in Western countries are grieving the innocent people who are going to lose their lives in this cruel battle, and those who already have.
It is a dark time for Eastern Europe, and especially for Ukraine, which is now facing the threat of a massive human disaster.
Maybe we should see it as a dark time for all of us, even if the bombings did not take place right in our backyards.
I also hope that people across Europe are more worried about the lives we have lost than spreading hatred at the refugees who might be looking to fly abroad to save themselves.
I would like to see more people standing for other human beings who are about to lose everything they have ever had.
I would like to see people in Nottingham and wider England showing support to the Ukrainian nationals whose past, present, and future are now uncertain.
I would just like to see more respect towards humanity.
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