My alarm clock in the city of Sibirodoniec in the Luhansk region of eastern Ukraine was the thunder of artillery and shells that began to fall on the city. Outside the hotel, reporters gathered for a war council that looked like a customer from a movie. British reporters expressed a strong desire to stay. "You're just in a panic," they said condescendingly to their Ukrainian companions, as they feared for their children's lives in cities like Kiev and Kharkiv.
The decision to return to Kiev was made quickly, and within minutes we were already making our way, on the rickety roads of the East, on a nine-hour road back to the capital, which had already been bombed by this point.
The ascent on the highway was very comforting, but very quickly turned out to be a mistake: a shell landed in the middle of the road not far from the vehicle I was driving with the Ukrainian escorts.
Israel Today reporter in Maiden Square in Kiev
Except for ringing in the ears, no damage was done.
But further down the road we discover a horrific spectacle of vehicles whose occupants were hit by the bombing.
Along the way we passed airports and burning military installations after a Russian aerial bombardment.
Above us were jet engines.
Heavy shelling was reported this morning in the village of Novotuszewski in the Luhansk Oblast, hundreds of meters from the front in front of pro-Russian separatists.
"There is no electricity or water, the telephone line is disconnected and the shelling does not stop," said Dasha, an English teacher who works in the village. "We are afraid and anxious about what is to come."
Map of attacks in Ukraine,
In the town of Andreyevka in eastern Ukraine citizens stood in a long line to use the only ATM in the town and buy groceries in the small supermarket.
"Everything is so scary, but we have to take care of ourselves," said Louisa, who was waiting in line to buy groceries. "Our army will do anything to keep us safe. I want the world to look and see what happened to us.
At the gas stations, there were huge queues of vehicles waiting to refuel, and at most stations in the east of the country, gasoline ran out.
Maiden, a protest square in Kiev that put Ukraine on a collision course with Moscow in 2014, was desolate.
Army forces were deployed around and a night curfew was declared.
The shops, malls and restaurants near the beautiful square are all closed, and except for a small shawarma stall, no stranger has a hunger to find a dining room.
The fighter jets are roaring above us.
A convoy of vehicles of Ukrainian civilians fleeing the war zone, Photo: Reuters
"I have nothing to fear," said Ibrahim, a shawarma salesman from Sudan.
Oksana, a city resident behind me, had a hard time stopping the tears.
"Everything we've been working on for the last eight years will go down the drain if we lose. Our freedom, our independence, our freedom of speech. We will be another Russia only with a different flag, like in Belarus."
As darkness descends on the city and the closure approaches, the few foreigners gather in hotels, hoping to find a way to evacuate the city as early as tomorrow morning.
The world has abandoned Ukraine to its fate, and now even journalists are afraid to stay.
Were we wrong?
Fixed!
If you found an error in the article, we'll be happy for you to share it with us
