‘Total war’: The human face of the assault on Ukraine

There are times at night when Svitlana Dvorchina will not leave her apartment when the air-raid alarm goes off. It can be more secure to stay at home, she feels, rather than join the rush to a shelter. And her two young children can be so tired from playing in the afternoon that they sleep through the noise.

“They don’t hear it,” she says. “Even when we have these massive night attacks on Kyiv, for example, my kids can sleep well. But me, I do not sleep that way. I hear every explosion.”

Dvorchina, 36, has moved all their beds to a corner of the room so they are as far as possible from the windows, in case a blast sends glass flying. Like so many in the Ukrainian capital, she thinks about the danger from drone and missile strikes, and she knows she can wake the children and run to a damp basement or a crowded underground metro station.

Often, her decision is to stay with Eilisai, 11, and Artem, 6, and let them sleep. She remembers what her husband, Yurii, told her earlier in the war: “Do not run away. Just be home.” She has to do this on her own. Yurii, a professional soldier, died from cancer six months ago.

We are talking at a care hub where parents can give their children an escape from the war. Eilisai and Artem are in a library down the corridor with a crowd of other kids listening to stories. Dvorchina speaks with an incredible calm about the choices she has to make as winter approaches, even though the options are fraught: she cannot afford the rent with Yurii gone, and she is not sure if the heating will work.

Every decision is a gamble when Russia is intensifying its drone and missile strikes. In Kyiv, people talk about “total war” from Russian attacks on civilian targets like petrol stations, passenger trains, buses and homes. Ukrainians continue their lives despite the air raid alerts, trying to make the most of every peaceful moment , but the pressure is exhausting after more than four years of war.

“It’s a fear. It’s not a life. It’s surviving,” she says. “What we do is we try to catch a moment of life between air alarms.”

Her tears fall as she talks. Her younger brother, Maxim, a soldier, died in eastern Ukraine one week ago. He left a trench in the fighting around Pokrovsk to rescue a wounded comrade, only to be killed by a landmine. Their mother has been asked to supply a DNA sample so he can be formally identified.

Klochik, 37, is angry and distraught as she speaks about the cruelty of the war. Her three children, Kyrylo, 14, Sofiia, 10, and Petro, 9, are in the library with the others while we talk. Here at the care hub, operated by Caritas Ukraine and supported by donations from Australia, there is at least a respite from hardship.

“Our children have to study in the shelters,” says Klochik, speaking through a translator. “They always have to be somewhere hiding. Here, at Caritas, I come for my children to distract them from the war. And here we are all together, and we do something to help our children.

“It’s hard to explain what this is, but it’s definitely not life. It’s surviving.”

There is exhaustion in her voice, although her words do not sound like despair.