It was a blast so large that Aliza could hear the doors and windows of her father’s Kharkiv apartment clap through the phone to her home in Melbourne.
“The situation has changed much more drastically since we last spoke,” Aliza, 37, tells Mamamia in the late hours of Monday evening.
“It has become much worse.”
Ukrainian apartment building hit by a missile near Kyiv's Zhuliany Airport. Post continues after video.
Aliza, Viktoria and Igor - Kharkiv.
Aliza left her beloved Kharkiv in 2005 when she and her Australian husband followed their careers to Beijing. Three years ago, they uprooted again, this time to his hometown of Melbourne.
Just hours after Putin declared war on Ukraine, Aliza shared with Mamamia, that there was a Russian tank on the street outside her apartment in Kharkiv.
And she also shared her desperate worry for her sister and father who remain in the eastern city, just 40 kilometres from the Russian border.
In one apartment, Aliza’s sister, Viktoria, huddled together with her daughter, and son-in-law. They took in his grandmother too, terrified from the bombing of the airport near her home.
But Aliza’s father, Igor, remained in his own apartment in the Kharkiv’s Kholodna Gora precinct. He is 70 years old and disabled; partially paralysed from a stroke in recent years.
“He cannot run for his life, but he also said he won’t leave his home.”
And he is alone.
Two years ago, his wife Mila, visited Aliza in Australia. Then the pandemic hit, and she was grounded here. Just as Mila was making plans to return, tensions with Russia began to rise.
“My mum is distraught, crying all the time. We are just so worried for my father,” Aliza shared on Friday afternoon.
Then, Aliza was calm, articulate; her voice tempered with concern and contained fervour. By Monday evening, exhaustion grips her words, and it is clear: This is what five days of war sounds like for a daughter and sister from afar.
Five days of staggered communication, and ever-refreshed news updates, and fleeting moments of sleep, and the infrequent bite of food.
When life becomes mere existence.
She tells, “My sister had to run in the middle of the night, because the bombing was getting too close.”
“They jumped in their car and left for western Ukraine. It took them a ridiculous amount of hours to get there through all possible obstacles – missiles and bombs and guns. Fortunately, they got there safely.”
“But my dad, unfortunately, stayed behind – and he’s the one I’m most worried about.”
“We’ve had the best and worst together and travelled a lot together – all over Ukraine, Malaysia and Singapore, and St Petersberg in Russia,” she tells Mamamia.
“We talk every day, and she talks with my mum everyday.”
But these last few days have been “horrific”, she says.
“I don’t sleep, I don’t eat and the future is unknown. I think I got older by 10 years during these five days. I would describe it as fear and hopelessness.”
Although Yevgeniia’s hope for Ukraine's future continues to shine.
“I want my son not to have the opportunity to travel and study. I want him to raise his kids in Ukraine. I don’t want him to run, cry or hide. I want him to see his parents safe and smiling.”
“I want him not to be afraid.”
Michelle and Maria, Kyiv.
With Russian hostility escalating over the past few months, 26-year-old Ukrainian-born Melbourne nurse, Maria, was keeping a close eye on the news.
For the past three years, she had been waiting on the approval of her parents' visa applications to bring them to Melbourne. Over that time, she worked in the frontline of the pandemic, including administering COVID vaccinations.
Increasingly anxious, three weeks ago, Maria made the decision: She flew to Ukraine to help get her parents out of Kyiv. To get them to safety.
And then war was declared. Now, the three of them are in hiding together.
“We were all pretty nervous about her going,” shares her cousin and close friend, Michelle, a Melbourne-based pharmacist. “But up until a few days ago, when this all started, she said it was very calm. She was telling my mum, there are no signs of war here. Like, it's completely fine!”
“Now, they can hear the bombs going off, and can see missiles in the sky.”
While refuge would be safer in their basement, it flooded with melted snow, and so they remain in their apartment.
“Even if they wanted to leave Ukraine now, they can’t.”
‘The fear and paranoia is real’
Despite migrating from Kyiv almost 30 years ago, the city remains at the centre of Sofiya’s heart.
She warmly remembers those times when strawberries were incomparably sweet, and weekends were spent at the theatre.
“It was always Ukraine and Russia together, like a sister and brother. I come here from the USSR. I can’t believe what happened now. I am very disappointed and upset. Last night, I didn’t sleep.”
Sofiya’s cousin, Valerie, an artist in his mid-70s, still lives in Kyiv’s city centre with his musician wife. He was oblivious to the war until she awoke him at 6am on Friday with a distraught phone call.
“He said, 'Don’t worry! Don’t panic!'… Well, I am panicked! He is very optimistic always.”
But Sofiya’s friends did not share Valerie’s apathy – many of whom have now been hiding in the Metro subway stations underground for days.
“My friends are crying to me on the phone. They are saying, 'What will be for my children? My grandchildren?'."
Irina migrated from Lviv (formely Lvov) as a refusenik in 1974. Her aunt and cousins remain in Odessa. She spoke with them briefly on Thursday, and they were “quite distressed.”
The following day, the family had their cars packed with full tanks of petrol, and were on standby to leave. Irina’s aunty was too frightened to speak on the phone again as planned.
“The fear and paranoia is real,” adds Irina’s daughter, Lily.
And with good reason. Etched deep into the collective psyche are the not-so-distant memories of Soviet rule. Indeed, Irina’s uncle was sentenced to 10 years of hard labour in the Siberian gulag – just for listening to the radio.
Irina’s parents, now also living in Australia, issued a new warning to the family: “Don’t post anything against Putin on Facebook! He’s got spies everywhere!”
Their anxiety is genuine – and not contained to those who lived through the Soviet years.
As you would have noticed by now, every single woman who spoke to Mamamia has chosen not to share their surname. Some wanted to share photos, but then decided against it. Other women were initially keen to speak, but later changed their mind.
Indeed, the fear is very real.
Of what is. And of what will be.
For more information on how to help the people of Ukraine.
Keen to read more from Rebecca Davis? You can find her articles here, or follow her on Instagram, @rebeccadavis___
Image: Getty/Mamamia.