October 17, 2022

The air raid sirens rang around 6 a.m. at around 7, there was a blast and then what sounded like numerous gunshots. I saw numerous birds flying eastwards and then westwards. Then a silence. I sat on my bed and wondered what to do next. Then another round of gunshots, firecracrackers something in between the two and then a boom. I could see grey smoke rise into the air.

It is a strange experience to wake up to explosions in a city in which only the afternoon before you went for a long walk in a local park, visited the busy main street and shopped before coming home to cook a peaceful dinner before going to sleep. 

Those gunshot and firecracker sounds are apparently owned by kamikaze drones sent from somewhere in the south of Ukraine. That doesn’t really matter, I suppose. Just the reality of living in a city being attacked from afar by drones that can touch down anywhere is mind-boggling.

It is so mind-boggling that it doesn’t really set in, so you try to stick to your routine. It’s as though it’s all happening around you, but who it seems to be happening to most are people providing commentary from abroad. The people within the city mostly shelter and stay quiet. Analysts from far off countries shout supreme. It’s a very bizarre juxtaposition. 

The biggest difference between the attacks in the last week of February and now, is that people are not flooding out of Kyiv. This is how many countries in the world turn into generational victims of war. Slowly, it is no longer an escape plan, but an acceptance routine and a planted hatred that lasts decades and even centuries without there ever being a conclusion.

Just imagine waking up, and there is a giant crater in  your neighbourhood park from another country attacking yours. Do you just pick up yourself and try to go to another country or do you stay and endure or do you just lose your mind or do you become intent on a fixed goal of destroying the enemy.

All the while this is going on in the hearts and minds of the people just trying to live,for others it’s a game.. There are those that can help change it all that won’t change it all because it benefits them magnificently. This is true for Ukraine as well as many other destabilized countries around the world.