Veronica, 19
The months before the war were the best of my life. I was in my second year at university and one of the best students on the course. But the thing that brought my life true meaning was playing ice hockey. It was what I woke up for every morning. On 23 February our coach told me of plans to set up a women’s hockey team to try and reach the professional league. I went to bed so happy, looking forward to the next day.
The next morning when I woke up at 5.30am I didn’t immediately understand that it was explosions, and not my alarm clock, that had woken me up. My bed was shaking from the shockwaves.
My mum and I came out of our bedrooms, barely understanding what was happening. For the first few hours we sat together, waiting for it all to finish, but the bombing just got worse. So we packed a suitcase and ran to my grandparents’ basement.
As soon as I got into the basement I realized my life as I had known it was over. Hockey, work, friends, a man with whom I was very much in love, all of these things finished that day. That is probably why I do not feel anything any more: no fear, no pain, no anger, no desire to live. I feel like I died at 5.30am on 24 February.
There was nothing in the dusty basement. We had no ventilation or water, and electricity only for a short time. The four of us ate a piece of bread and a sweet twice a day. The basement and building were shaking under the constant explosions. Our phones were cut off. It was like being in an underground box. We had no idea whether it was day or night.
Soon we began hearing new sounds. We did not immediately realize that Russian aircraft were dropping bombs. We were able to stretch out our food until 8 March, surviving on moldy bread. Sometimes the adults went up to look at the sky, the light, but I was not allowed. When snow fell, we were delighted: it could be eaten and drunk. But by that point I was completely dehydrated and had lost all hunger and thirst.
My mother and I were given the opportunity to move from the left bank to the city centre, which at that point was a little safer. But for reasons I can’t go into, only the two of us could go. We said farewell to my grandparents. I have not heard anything else about them.
From 8 March we hid in a warehouse on the left bank. The hunger, thirst and cold continued, and we tried not to succumb to mass hysteria. There was a market nearby and we ran there under the bombing to forage for the remains of vegetables among the rubble and burning cars. We were risking our lives for rotting vegetables.
By 14 March we realized that we could not survive on the tiny amount of food and water we could find, so we decided to leave. We found someone with a car and drove out of the city. To me at this point it was all the same. Die in a warehouse or die in the middle of the road from Mariupol. A few days later we learned that the whole area we were hiding in had been burned down.
Eventually we reached Zaporizhzhia, where it was safe. From there we made it to Lviv and are now in a small village in the mountains.
Apart from my mother I do not know where my family are. My grandparents’ building was razed to the ground and our family’s apartment is probably occupied by Chechen Kadyrovtsy [militia], who are helping the Russians. I feel sick thinking about them touching my childhood photos or my hockey kit.
Who is responsible for this? Who will apologize? Who will return my stolen life to me? Just like my home city, I have the sense that I no longer exist. I have severe skin problems due to the lack of hygiene, and the dust in the basement means I am always short of breath. I no longer have a normal relationship with food.
I could become a refugee but all I want is to go to the door of my own home, which I will never open again. Although we are safe for now I will never recover from this trauma; it will haunt me for my whole life.
Yegorfifteen
Martial law meant that, on 24 February, school was closed. Our family did not take the idea of war too seriously but decided to pack and move to the center of Mariupol, to our grandmother’s apartment.
Once we reached the center, things were initially fine: we couldn’t hear any shooting, but my friends on the left bank were sending voice notes with the sounds of guns. A few days later, they started shooting near us. We could hear and feel daily that the Russians were getting closer.
On 2 March we lost electricity, water and communication. The generators stopped working and even the air raid sirens failed. Three days later the heating was turned off and we began to get very cold. We all sleep in the same bed, trying to stay warm.
Mum cooked food in the yard of the apartment block. We did not even have bread: we made little donuts from water, flour and salt, and cooked soups without meat. There was no water.
Things began getting much more dangerous. A lot of people began arriving from the left bank, including a lot of teenagers my age. One day I heard a cluster bomb fall about 20 meters from me and explode. The Russians say they only hit military targets, but the many corpses on the streets told a different story.
We left the city on 16 March. As we drove through Mariupol, the only things still standing were ruins, destroyed buildings, craters from missile strikes. Black smoke hung everywhere. We to leave without knowing about the “green corridor” because nobody decided in Mariupol knew about these routes, but we found ourselves in a huge movement of people trying to leave.
We got out of the city, taking nine hours to drive 20km [12 miles]. We could see a huge column of tanks, armored personnel carriers, buses and cars, containing Chechens and displaying the letter Z, which Russia is using as a symbol of war.
We left for Dnipro after two days. There were about 15 Russian checkpoints along the way: they stopped everyone and demanded that photos of Mariupol, the wrecked architecture and destroyed buildings, were deleted. They wanted to give the impression they were not touching the civilian population. They made my mum show them her phone gallery de ella, and removed memory cards from the car’s video recorders.
Now we are reunited with my grandparents. It is warm and cosy; we have light and gas. It is quiet for now. Yet I know the war is not over. Every generation has its times of suffering. Our grandparents knew war, and now we do as well.
Edik, 15
In our family, everyone – my mum, brother and I – listens to my father. We have always been against Ukraine and firmly on Putin’s side. Dad says Putin has lifted Russia up and cares about all of its people.
I used to be an ordinary teenager, studying and going out with friends. In February everyone started talking about the war, but I didn’t believe it: I was more concerned about schoolwork.
On 24 February the bombs began landing on Mariupol and our parents told us to pack up. In the first few days our electricity, communications, water and gas were cut off. On the second day a rocket destroyed our school.
When there was an explosion nearby, we went down to the basement. We stayed there for 20 days and the entire time was a struggle to stay alive. Sometimes we would dash home and get things from our apartment. We would run in and lie on the floor so they wouldn’t shoot at us.
Between 9 March and 12 March, the building began taking direct hits. It was terrifying. Mum cried, Dad shook with worry. One day Dad went upstairs and a rocket flew into the next apartment. The shockwave deafened him, and his eardrums burst, but he was lucky. Later our building completely burned down. We lost everything.
On 16 March, soldiers from the [self-proclaimed] Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) came to rescue us. They told us Ukrainian snipers were sitting in the next building, killing everyone. We were assured they would save us from the Ukrainians, who had apparently seized everything. They said the Russian air force would soon strike our homes to destroy the Ukrainian nationalists. We were taken out and, when we left our neighbourhood, saw black smoke rising above the apartment blocks.
We were taken to Bezymennoye, 30km from Mariupol, where we were given food and clothes. Now we are in Yaroslavl, north-east of Moscow and are waiting to be settled somewhere.
I believe the Ukrainians are guilty and caused the suffering of everyone in our basement. They shot at civilians, killed people at night, and Russia saved us. If it was not for Russia, the Ukrainians would have come down and shot all of us.
When the DPR take Mariupol and rebuild everything, I will return home. It will be wonderful if I can return to the place where I was born.
Sign up for a different view with our Global Dispatch newsletter – a roundup of our top stories from around the world, recommended reads, and thoughts from our team on key development and human rights issues, delivered to your inbox every two weeks:
Sign up for Global Dispatch – please check your spam folder for the confirmation email
www.theguardian.com
George is Digismak’s reported cum editor with 13 years of experience in Journalism