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Before the occupation of Crimea by Russia in 2014, I used to live and work in the city of Yalta. The things were going fine, and I did not plan to change anything in my life. But the year 2014 changed not only my life, but also the lives of many people. I just couldn’t get it through my head that I would never be able to live my usual life, and nothing could be returned back.

My life collapsed in a moment when, on an early spring morning, I saw warships cruising in the port of Yalta. All Ukrainian media was switched off and we did not have reliable information about what was happening in Kyiv and Crimea. The only thing easing the pain and fear was telephone connection with my relatives, but this connection was cut off shortly. I felt alone and I was scared.

The Russians allowed us to leave the territory of Crimea until April 15, 2014. I made the decision right away and left Crimea with a single suitcase. The last thing I remember about my beloved Crimea is the empty train station in Simferopol and me passing the Russian checkpoint. The process of Russians going through my belongings at the checkpoint was the most humiliating moment in my life. Crimea was annexed by Russia, and, in that moment, I thought that Putin destroyed my life and career. Back then, I thought those were the most terrible events in my life and I would not feel anything worse.

After the annexation of Crimea, I returned to my hometown Sumy, where I had lived before I moved to Crimea. My life began to improve, and I thought that I would be able to forget the terrible moments which happened with me in spring of 2014.

But on the day of February 24, 2022, I received a call from my friends at 5 am, who told me that the war had begun. It is very difficult for me now to describe my condition, my emotions, and feelings at that moment. My brain simply couldn't comprehend that it was the reality, and I was not horror-dreaming. I was paralyzed with fear I had never felt before.

I saw Russian tanks on the first day of the war when I visited my mother who lives outside the city. And then the most terrible events started happening. Every day we heard the sounds of military planes flying over our house on the way to the city Sumy. We heard airstrikes, after which the Cadet School was destroyed, where teenagers had studied. The airstrikes targeted houses of civilians. Many adults and children of the city Sumy will never wake up after such airstrikes, because they bombed in the early morning, when Ukrainians were still sleeping. How can a normal grasp it and live with this? How can civilians and children die in the 21st century?

For a long time, the cold basement was our home. I prayed to God for salvation, and I have believed and I keep believing that the Ukrainian army will defend Ukraine and we will win this war.

We left the city of Sumy through the last humanitarian corridor. When I was in a safe place, I realized that everything had happened again, only now the Russian aggression is worse and more monstrous. I want to say that Putin destroyed my life and career again, I hate Russians who came to Ukraine to kill peace-loving Ukrainians and who want to destroy peaceful Ukraine as a country.

I would like to finish this story with my grandmother’s words, who was taken to Germany by the fascists in time of the Second World War. She described many moments of her life in Germany during the war, about the Germans as people who live there, about their culture, about their life. But for a long time, I could not understand only one phrase which remained in my memory, she said: “there is no nation in the whole world worse than Russians.” In my opinion, it’s true.

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