Ukrainians wake up to the sound of Russian bombing

In the middle of the night, the noise that had been feared for days woke up the Ukrainian capital, in panic. At 4:30 a.m., explosions ripped through the sky over Kiev for the first time since World War II.

At dawn, the first warning sirens sounded for several minutes from loudspeakers throughout the capital.

“The noise of the bombs woke me up, I packed my bags and ran”, Maria Kashkoska, 29, told AFP, crouched on the floor of the subway, where she found shelter.

Shocked, this businesswoman said she was “prepared for any eventuality.”

On the balconies, worried and questioning looks could be seen: Was it an airstrike, explosions? What objectives were achieved?

An hour after that panicked awakening, nobody knew anything, no information was leaked about the origin or purpose of these explosions in or around the capital.

Without waiting to know, the inhabitants of Kiev set out.

The avenues were filled with traffic while it was still dark. Cars full of families were leaving the city, heading west or towards the countryside, far from the Russian border, located 400 km away.

If the eastern front is where the bombing seems heaviest, no region of Ukraine seems to be safe.

At the other end of the country, in the coastal city of Odessa and even in Lviv, the western city where the United States and other countries moved their embassies, the sirens, announcing the urgent need for shelter, also sounded every 15 minutes.

“Keep calm!” Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov wrote on Twitter.

“If possible, stay home. The situation is under control (…) Your calm and your trust in the Ukrainian armed forces is the best help at this time, ”he said in a message to the population.

“Save our lives”

Until the last moment, many Ukrainians did not believe in the war, which took the form of coordinated attacks launched Wednesday night by Vladimir Putin against the neighboring country.

In Kiev, preparations had so far been discreet.

But on Wednesday night, after the proclamation of the state of emergency, the mayor of Kiev, Vitali Klitschko, announced the installation of checkpoints at the main entrances of the capital and the reinforcement of passenger controls at train stations. and the airport.

Outside the Maidan Square metro station in central Kiev, a woman tried to silence the screams of her cat, which she eventually put in a backpack.

“We have to save our lives, and we hope that the metro is safe enough, since it is underground,” Ksenia Mitchenka told AFP, before hurrying into the metro.

Many families came to the station entrance with suitcases and bags and their eyes glued to their phones. The agents opened the turnstiles and indicated the way. At the bottom of the endless escalators, several groups of people were sitting on the ground waiting.

“We’re staying here, it’s safer, we’re going to wait here,” explained a young woman, who did not want to give her name and who was carrying her documentation, chargers and a lot of cash in her bag, “the essentials” to flee in times of war.