Life and Fear Under Occupation

Life under occupation is scary. Very scary. And that horror is not easy to put into words. However, I want to tell you about how I lived under occupation for 181 days or 6 months. I saw how different people endured that horror, together; people pulled together which gave them the strength to survive. This story is not only about my life. In fact, it’s about Ukrainians, and how time and time again, they managed to overcome hell, for life, because of their ability to unite and be there for each other.

In 2013, I watched the news. The news reported what was happening in my country at the time. I was still very young back then and didn’t understand much. My father and I used to go frequently on vacation to Crimea. One day I decided to listen to what my father and uncle were talking about while watching the news. It was then, amid the conversation, that I heard the words: "Crimea has been occupied." I didn’t understand who did it and why, it was just a phrase for me. The only thing that was perfectly clear to me then was that my father and I would not be going to Crimea that summer. I saw a video of tanks driving through the very locations where I had been vacationing with my father, just a year ago.

Later on, in school, I attended history lessons which I used to hate. I learned that the occupation of Crimea took place in 2014, when the Russian Federation seized the peninsula and declared it its territory. This happened after Viktor Yanukovych, the then-President of Ukraine, had fled the country. The conflict in Donetsk and Luhansk began simultaneously with the Euromaidan and the Revolution of Dignity. In the southeast of Ukraine, tensions rose between Ukrainians and pro-Russians, these tensions led to a war.

 

Memories at gun point

The news of the full-scale war came in the middle of the night and caught me in my student dormitory. I remember it as if it were yesterday: here I am, sitting on my bed and installing an update to a game on my laptop. It’s four a.m., everything is quiet. Suddenly, someone telephoned my girlfriend. She picked up the phone and left the room. A few minutes later she came back, pale, with tears in her eyes, and said: "Mom called...Our village was bombed." I got scared. Actually, I was in a complete panic. We started waking up everyone we could, telling them to quickly pack up their most important belongings. I called my mother in Skadovsk.

“We can hear explosions over here!”, I shouted at her.

“Are you drunk? Go to bed!”, my mom said and hung up.

I called her back again. This time my mom was fully awake. She wanted me home, but I had seen the line of vehicles trying to leave Kherson and decided to stay in the dormitory. If the war found me here, then that’s where I should be.

Suddenly I heard a loud explosion. The balcony near me was shaking as if it was about to collapse. My thoughts were: "They blew up the airport!" I hung up the phone and ran into the room where all the others were. Everyone was looking out the window—at the airport, covered in smoke. Neighbours ran home. Together with some friends I ran out to prepare a bomb shelter: we needed a place where we could be safe from the shelling.

We brought in old metal spring beds. We agreed that two of us would carry them and the other two would assemble them. But then one of the boys decided to go home. I was left to put all the beds together myself. To say that I was tired is an understatement. My back was aching, and when I lay down on the last assembled bed, I just fell asleep. The girls woke me up. They said the beds needed to be rearranged a bit. We moved the beds side by side to make one big bed for the whole group. It was very cold, so everyone put on two jackets and we curled up into a big ball, and that’s how we stayed warm and cosy. We were happy to be alive.

We could hear explosions outside. It was frightening to hear. My parents kept my spirits up by phoning to say that all was quiet where they were and that not a single Russian was to be seen. My friends and I sat in the bomb shelter, oblivious to the passing of time. All we had were board games and a lamp hanging from the ceiling. I heard water dripping somewhere, drop by drop.

We would cheer each other up, the girls would cook, the boys would go to the shop to buy bread and other food.

It was scary to walk in the streets. We didn't know what was under our feet. You could walk along and not see a trip wire. That's how I understood that one careless step could cost your life. The queues to the shop were very long, several hundred metres. When you see them, you realise that your chances of buying anything are slim. You might not even be able to enter the shop that day. Everyone is hungry and wants to eat. As you stand in line, you hear explosions. You can't decide whether to run or stay and wait, hoping that in a few hours you'll have something, at least some kind of food, in your hands. On the bright side, if you did make it back to the dorm with a bag of food, you would feel like the happiest person in the world.

Two weeks in a bomb shelter and I was beginning to feel discouraged. I wanted to go for a walk, get some fresh air. Finally, I went out and I saw a very different Kherson. The city isn't the same, it's not what it used to be before the occupation. There is no end of cars with military personnel from the Russian Federation and machines with the following markings: "Z", "O", "V", "To Berlin!", "We can repeat 1941–45". Constant gunfire. It was petrifying. The Russians would just drive around and shoot at anything or anyone in sight. It annoyed them that people would gather to form human walls to stop their tanks. These people were ordinary civilians trying to free their homes from the invaders. This made the Russians even angrier. But the civilians were united in their cause. And that gave everyone hope.

To distract myself a little, I went back to my little room on the eighth floor and started staying there for the night. I was very scared of the war. My great-grandmother, who survived World War II, used to say that “war is bad”. My grandfather constantly repeated, “may there be no war”. Now, I will also be saying that war is bad.

My parents arranged for me to come home. I packed my laptop, my clothes and my most valuable things. Deleted all videos and pictures that could harm me, due to the "improper" content. There were rumours that people were taken captive and beaten on the spot, and even that a gun may be put to your head. I deleted most of my data, including Messenger. However, while waiting for the driver, I had to download the Telegram messaging service to call my mom. After talking to her, I didn’t delete Telegram. The driver arrived, I got into his car, and we went to pick up the others who needed to be taken home. We passed through some roadblocks. We had an old lady with us who kept saying “yes” all the time and a man who didn’t say a word. I had my headphones on and was listening to music. The driver told us all to hide our phones. But I had music playing on my phone, it helped me to calm down. We approached the first checkpoint. I understood this from the loud knocking of the AK-47 barrel on the window. I opened the door. My phone was between my legs, a briefcase with clothes on my lap. I was asked to hand over my phone. Confident that it was "clean," I calmly handed it over to the Russian soldier. He checked up the Gallery and other content on the phone. Then he opened Telegram where Ukrainian news were and began to threaten me. He ordered me to delete everything from the Gallery and to unsubscribe from all groups on the spot or I'd be kept there with them. Thank God they didn't check my briefcase. In it I had a Ukrainian Armed Forces uniform that had been a gift. I deleted everything. They let us go. We went to the village of Stepanivka, to the psychiatric clinic, to pick up a young girl there. After that, we headed for the road to take us home. There were numerous line-ups at the checkpoints but the military no longer inspected our belongings.

Finally, I was home in my native Skadovsk. The city was still under occupation, but I was with my parents. I was happy. I saw my grandmother and my younger brother, we took the suitcases and went home together. I wanted to see all my friends as soon as possible! I wanted to walk along the small, familiar streets. It was my first day at home with my family. The trip to Skadovsk was hard, so after having a brief chat with my family, I went to bed. The next day I went out for coffee with my best friend. We met up and had a smoke.

“Soon, they’re going to install Russian Internet here”, he said, suddenly.

“No way, that’s not going to happen. We will be taken back soon, there’s no point in even thinking about it”, I replied.

But my friend wasn’t giving up:

"We will not be retaken. We’re going to be the Kherson People’s Republic now.”

“Fuck them. They won’t get a Kherson People’s Republic! Are you kidding me, talking shit like that?” I burst out.

“It’s clear that they are here to stay. As soon as I get the chance, I’m going to get a Russian passport!”, my friend said proudly.

My throat was dry. I swallowed an invisible stone. I was trying to find the words, but I didn't know what to say. And then, I turned around and left. I wanted to scream out loud. I realized that I no longer had friends. I sat at home, feeling sick. I didn’t understand how my former friend could do such a thing. He used to want to become a career military officer and now he’s saying this... I was losing faith in people.

Voice for freedom: a rally against the occupation

One tragic day of the occupation left me with painful memories. I understood very well all the danger, as well as the responsibility I had for my own life, but one day I got ready and went to the local "ATB" supermarket. There I saw a huge crowd of people standing in line.

They were protesters. People were pulled into becoming part of the protest, even those who simply came here to buy some bread. This gathering of people turned into a threat to the regime that the invaders tried so hard to enforce. The Russian military arrived at the scene immediately and began to brutally break up the rioters. But the people were not going to go anywhere. The protest grew in scale. The invaders threw tear gas grenades at us. It was hard to breathe and look at the light. Eyes were tearing. The invaders threw around stun grenades, making us feel like we were on a battlefield.

 

Hostages on the street: a story of meeting Russian military

Somehow my friend and I got into our car and drove towards home. We almost made it, when unexpectedly two civilian cars stopped us. Unfortunately, people in those cars were not civilians at all. Our car was completely blocked. We couldn’t make the slightest move. The Russian soldiers got out of their vehicles with weapons in their hands and forced us out of the car. It was terrifying! I saw ten armed men. About 20–25 years old, medium build. Their faces were covered up with masks. Among them there was a big man with broad shoulders, they all looked very strong, yet still tense. It seemed that they just rotated from the front and didn’t understand that Skadovsk was a small, quiet town, and not a front-line area.

The Russian military held us hostage and searched our car. Finally, they realized we weren't a threat and let us go. It turned out we broke curfew by one minute. This was far too scary for me. Regardless of my fear, something caught my attention.

I observed these Russian soldiers and they too looked very scared, themselves. There was a dwarf among them, his whole body was shaking. He was literally quivering! Despite my fear, it was interesting to watch him and the other invaders. It's good that everything ended well for my friend and myself, and we quickly dashed home.

Now I am in the Ukrainian controlled territory. I left the occupied area in August 2022. When the war came to my city, everything changed there. Like most residents of my city, I witnessed incredible cruelty and violence on the part of the Russian invaders. I saw my friends and acquaintances disappear without a trace. They were simply taken—nowhere. I've lived through a lot of fear. I'm not the carefree fellow I used to be anymore.

I've been through a lot, but I can't say that I'm proud of who I've become after this terrible experience. I’ve become more withdrawn and unable to trust people. Because I’ve seen those who sided with the invaders. Still, I keep trying to find inner strength to live on. I have learned to appreciate little joys in life and to enjoy simple things. It gives me strength to move forward. To the Great Victory.