Millions of civilians of Ukraine discover their “50 shades of fear” every day under air raids on civil buildings, Grad heavy showers, tanks, artillery, shooting in the streets. And they re-discover their “50 shades of dignity” every day, which can be the last one.
Children as well as adults daily and hourly experience all the horrors of war. This is an open letter from Alla in Ukraine:-
“Hi! My name is Alla, I’m 15 years old. I’m from Ukraine, Kyiv. Last 2 years I live in Irpen, it’s 5 km from Kyiv, but every day I drive to Kyiv, because all my friends and my school are there. I study in 10th class, go to some extra lessons dancing and singing, learn English and German, spend time with my friends and family. Generally I can say that I live like a typical teenager in each country.”
“It was 5 am, when this horrible attack started. I woke up from the sounds of flying fighters and explosions in Irpen. It’s really hard to understand what’s going on immediately. It took about 20 minutes to watch recent news, receive lots of messages from my friends and finally understand. War has come! Russia attacked Ukraine.”
“Those 5 days where really hard for all of us. One of my classmates was sitting in bomb shelter for more than 12 hours. Another one was staying in queue for more than 4 hours to buy food. Personally I can say for sure- That Thursday – the first day- was the worst day of my life.”
We were sitting under the wall with the lights off and backpacks with documents ready. It was really frightening… we heard The sounds of exploitations very well. It was the first time I’ve heard them in real life and it was really hard. I wouldn’t want anyone to experience this. My hands were shaking heavily, that’s why I’ve drunk sedative to calm my nervous system. We had a sleepless night. It was just scary to go to bed, we didn’t want to miss the air raid sound. The next morning, we’ve received information, that Irpin could be grey zone between 2 armies – hot war zone. So we’ve made decision quickly- we had to leave. We were trying to pack our most essential things quickly, but even could not understand what we really need. Our brains couldn’t work normally under the sounds of explosions. We are in another city with our relatives now. But here we also can often hear sounds of air raid, so we should hide in basement. We really hope to come back home!”
