LETTER FROM KYIV

For my family, another night of war and bombs

A Kyiv resident shares her story from the central target of Putin's Ukranian invasion

Posted
Updated:

Editor’s note: The author and her husband are friends of News + Record Publisher Bill Horner III and his wife, Lee Ann. 

KYIV, Ukraine — Imagine, before the crack of dawn, you are pulled out of your sleep by multiple explosions outside. 

You wake up hoping you just dreamed it up because the last month your nerves have been strained by daily reminders that Russian attack is imminent. So at first you think your dream just repeated your fears, but then you clearly hear another explosion. 

You run to your computer to check on the news. You see the face of the Russian president distorted with hatred; he is almost hyperventilating with rage spitting into the camera the words about going into Ukraine with military operation to punish those who are guilty of persecuting Russian-speakers (the lie that Putin regularly repeats for many years now). 

So your mind quickly accepts the fact that the big invasion started, though you ask yourself: how are they already bombing our home, Kyiv, capital of Ukraine?! Now you need to quickly wake up your kids and take them to a bomb shelter. You stand by the bedside of your sleeping kids and you can’t bring yourself to wake them up, you can’t come up with words that you will have to say to them that will announce war in their lives. Your heart is racing, your mind is overloaded and everything seems surreal. 

That was our morning on Thursday when at 5 a.m. Russian planes and rockets bombed simultaneously many cities in Ukraine. People were shaken out of deep sleep by the harsh realization that the enemy army of 190,000 is striking our land. 

From multiple directions Russian tanks broke borders and started advancing. Our army continues to fight them bravely. Many of those tanks are bursting in flames. On that first day of war seven Russian bomb carrier planes were shot, too. But Russian invaders did take over part Chernobyl nuclear power station 80 miles away from Kyiv. Now they are bringing a lot of artillery into Chernobyl zone knowing that they can shoot from there and nobody will try to shut them up — who would fire in the direction of a nuclear plant?!

Friday morning for our family started at 4:20 a.m. when our windows shook from an explosion that seemed very close; the sky seemed lit up by orange flames. We rushed to our improvised bomb shelter — a narrow corridor between our apartment and apartment of our daughter and son-in-law. We do have a bomb shelter in the basement of our 12-storied building, but it’s very small and there is nothing there — no water, nothing to sit on, no restroom. 

With our daughter at the end of 38th week of pregnancy, running down seven flights of stairs to stay for hours in a place like that was not an option. So every time sirens signal air raid we gather in our small corridor and pray to God there is no direct hit on our building. 

Today we lost count of air raids. When it got quiet for a few hours my husband and I went to see the building that was hit — the explosion we woke up to. This building is a few minutes’ walk from our home; it’s between a kindergarten and a school where our kids used to study.  

A Russian missile was shot by our air defense; the debris fell on two buildings. The distruction was heartbreaking. I kept thinking how it is possible that this is happening in an ancient European capital of a European country in the heart of Europe, how Russia is being allowed to go in and start bombing Ukrainian cities. Everybody knows it’s outrageously wrong, but the world just stands by and watches this rape!

Europe should not hope that Putin will be satisfied with taking over Ukraine. He already claimed that he wants the world to go back to the time before the Soviet Union collapsed. He wants to restore the Soviet Union and its control over Eastern Europe. When this “beast” eats up Ukraine, it will be hungry for more. Why? Because he can — and because everybody will be just deeply concerned again and keep hoping that their own turn to face the “beast” will never come.

As I am writing we are going into the second night of war. We don’t know how early we will have to jump out of our beds tonight, but we know bombing will continue. We also know that our army is heroically holding off hordes of Russian tanks along a 2,000-kilometer border between Ukraine and Russia/Belarus. But Russian tanks are already in the suburbs of Kyiv. If our army will not destroy the enemy that is several times larger, Ukraine will cease to exist as an independent democratic country. 

Our men are motivated; they have their homes and families to protect. We keep asking what motivates Russians to fight to death to steal a neighbor’s land. Against all odds we hope to win this war as David killed Goliath. God is just! He destroys evil empires time and again! We pray and hope that this is one of those times!

The CN+R’s Bill Horner III and his wife made four trips to Ukraine between 2016 and 2019 through a Christian ministry called International Partnerships-Ukraine, which is based in Boone. Prior to the COVID pandemic, they and other members of their church worked with native Ukranian students and professionals, helping to teach English, lead workshops and develop relationships with ministry teams in Odessa, Lviv and Kyiv. Maia Mikhaluk and her husband, Nic, direct the work of IP-Ukraine and its team of full-time faith leaders from their home in Kyiv. The Mikhaluks, who make annual trips to N.C. and have been guests in the home of the Horners on several occasions, are sheltering in their apartment in Kyiv.