Since I have realized that I lost Mariupol, I don't miss Kharkiv. And I have also realized what roots mean. You can dislike the city where you were born, but the roots still give you their impulses. And you will never confuse what you have lost when you lose it.

In the chat of the Union of the Owners of Multiple Houses it was written that orcs were getting into the fourth entrance, trying to tear down the door. I thought then: “Well, that’s it, they’re coming after me!” I dressed up and waited. It turned out that the russians got a person from the fifth floor. At that time it reminded me of the events of 1933 that Remarque described: when Germans from the Gestapo arrested people in their apartments.

I realized that my wife is almost at the epicentre of the explosions. I rushed to her. At that point, the Grad multiple rocket launcher systems started firing. Tree branches were flying over us. Shells exploded some 50-60 meters away. Shell-shocked by the explosions, birds fall to the ground. I knew then that I was running towards my death.

On that day, the city centre was bombed. "There's a fighter jet in the rearview mirror," he said to us. — If you hear any sound now, jump out of the car and get on the ground."

We have everything to make our city and our country better. Because we know how to think and how to do things. The difference is that the initiative comes from below, here it's us who's evolving, while in Crimea the initiative comes from above, from the state, making people passive.

Always, especially when the siren goes off, I imagine a missile hitting my apartment: I see the furniture flying apart and how I get killed. I relive these moments constantly - I accept the fact that I'm going to die, and I feel better.
 

Around March 1, the lights were out, and on March 3, the gas was cut off. We tried to evacuate, but we were turned back, we were told that there was fighting outside the city. We didn't even make it to any of the checkpoints, people were telling each other: "They won't let us out, they won't let us out.”

For eight years I never went to the Donetsk region. For me, it was home as long as Ukraine was there. I will go back there when it is under Ukrainian control again. Until then I don't want to.