Nadia has lived all her life in Kharkiv, Ukraine. She has never been more proud of this fact until now.
The city is beautiful, he said, but it is the people who are the “real treasure.”
“[It’s] the courage of our people. It’s the ability to help each other, to organize, “he said.” So many people joined the territorial defense forces. Many people volunteered. A lot of people help each other. ”
“Before the war, many of us were just people. But now, we’ve all become citizens. Now we’re a nation.”
Nadia, 37, is a freelance designer who works with clients around the world. I was walking in the parks with my friends. She had plans.
But the war ended with that.
“It was like a total and complete shock. I didn’t want to believe it would happen,” he said. “… Kharkiv was a Russian-speaking city, and many of our people have relatives in Russia. To think that they will attack us is amazing. But amazing things happened, and here we are.”
The streets of Kharkiv now seem empty, as many have fled. What was once the commotion of the people has become the chronic “rumble of artillery,” Nadia said.
Nadia was recently at the supermarket. As he was getting ready to pay for his food, there was a sudden “bum, bum, bum.” The store closed and he could not buy his food.
Then, as he walked home, he saw what had happened. It was a drone attack.
“A woman’s leg was broken. I always have it in my head. She had a dog or a cat and she just wanted to buy food for her pet.”
Witnessing such attacks has become a bit of a norm.
At another grocery store he frequented, one day he was queuing up and something nearby exploded. Nadia’s gym has been bombed. And just moments before talking to CBS News in a video call on Sunday, Nadia said she watched from a window as a plane dropped a bomb.
Last week, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky accused Russia of war crimes for its attacks on Kharkiv, the country’s second largest city, saying Russian troops had attacked civilian areas with no military facilities nearby. Russian forces had attacked the region’s administrative building in Freedom Square and at least six people they were killed.
Now there are two simple safety rules, Nadia said: Keep a ribbon crossed on the windows to prevent the windows from breaking; and if there’s a blast nearby, quickly run “two walls deep” inside your house and hide.
Seeing all this, in less than two weeks, has felt like a “millennium” for Nadia.
“No one here remembers what day it is now,” he said. “Everyone knows only the number of the day of the war.”
However, Nadia considers herself lucky in the face of the situation. Unlike many others in Ukraine, it still has a home, electricity and internet.
And while she’s scared, she’s mostly angry, an emotion she thinks helps her keep going.
Nadia
That is also why he refuses to evacuate. She seeks to volunteer in her community, as many others who stayed have decided to do.
“This is my city. This is my land,” he said. “I look around and see all this stuff. My whole life is here. Why should I leave? Why a crazy psychologist who decided to destroy my city?”
As the days of war continue, Nadia spends her time trying to stay as calm as possible, even though it is difficult. With his cat by his side, he spends time embroidering, thinking about his plans and hopes for when the war is over.
“I want to travel to Ukraine, I want to see all the cities. I want to see them all,” he said. “… I want to learn to swim. I want to go by the sea. I haven’t seen the sea for 20 years.”
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