Waiting, fearing, singing: A night sheltering in Ukraine
By YURAS KARMANAU and MSTYSLAV CHERNOV Associated Press
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KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — When the children start crying, the adults start playing Ukrainian folk songs, or make up fairy tales to chase away the fear. Food and water are sometimes scarce. Everyone hopes for peace.
These are the vagaries of life in makeshift shelters around Ukraine, where families try to protect the young and old and make conditions bearable amid the distant clatter of bullets, missiles or shells outside.
Hundreds of thousands of citizens rushed to spend yet another night in Kyiv’s subway network as air raid sirens howled Sunday. Among those taking refuge in shelters are some Associated Press journalists bearing witness to how Ukrainians are coping with the war tearing their country apart, like piano teacher Alla Rutsko.
“A terrible dream … It seems to me that all this is not happening to me. The eyes see, but the mind refuses to believe,” said Rutsko, 37, sitting on an air mattress in Kyiv’s Pecherskaya subway station.
“On the fourth night, I can even sleep and dream,” she said. “But waking up is especially hard.”
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Emilio Morenatti
Vladimir, 70, and his wife Tamara, 80, sit in the Kyiv subway, using it as a bomb shelter in Kyiv, Ukraine, Thursday, Feb. 24, 2022. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)
Emilio Morenatti
People rest in the Kyiv subway, using it as a bomb shelter in Kyiv, Ukraine, Thursday, Feb. 24, 2022. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)
Emilio Morenatti
A family sit in the Kyiv subway, using it as a bomb shelter in Kyiv, Ukraine, Friday, Feb. 25, 2022. In Ukraine's capital, many residents hurried underground for safety overnight Thursday and Friday as Russian forces fired on the city and moved closer. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)
Emilio Morenatti
A family sit in the Kyiv subway, using it as a bomb shelter in Kyiv, Ukraine, Friday, Feb. 25, 2022. In Ukraine's capital, many residents hurried underground for safety overnight Thursday and Friday as Russian forces fired on the city and moved closer. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)
Emilio Morenatti
People sleep in the Kyiv subway, using it as a bomb shelter in Kyiv, Ukraine, Friday, Feb. 25, 2022. In Ukraine's capital, many residents hurried underground for safety overnight Thursday and Friday as Russian forces fired on the city and moved closer. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)
Emilio Morenatti
A girl paints on a note book next to her mother as they shelter in the Kyiv subway, using it as a bomb shelter, Ukraine, Saturday Feb. 26, 2022. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)
Emilio Morenatti
A girl looks at a notebook next to her mother as they stand in the Kyiv subway, using it as a bomb shelter, in Ukraine, Saturday Feb. 26, 2022. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)
Evgeniy Maloletka
People take shelter inside a building in Mariupol, Ukraine, Sunday, Feb. 27, 2022. Street fighting broke out in Ukraine's second-largest city and Russian troops squeezed strategic ports in the country's south as the prospect of peace talks remains uncertain. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)
Andriy Andriyenko
A child watches from a train carriage, waiting to leave to western Ukraine at the railway station in Kramatorsk, eastern Ukraine, Sunday, Feb. 27, 2022. The U.N. refugee agency says nearly 120,000 people have so far fled Ukraine into neighboring countries in the wake of the Russian invasion. The number was going up fast as Ukrainians grabbed their belongings and rushed to escape from a deadly Russian onslaught. (AP Photo/Andriy Andriyenko)
Andriy Andriyenko
A couple embrace prior to the woman boarding a train carriage leaving for western Ukraine, at the railway station in Kramatorsk, eastern Ukraine, Sunday, Feb. 27, 2022. The U.N. refugee agency says nearly 120,000 people have so far fled Ukraine into neighboring countries in the wake of the Russian invasion. The number was going up fast as Ukrainians grabbed their belongings and rushed to escape from a deadly Russian onslaught. (AP Photo/Andriy Andriyenko)
Czarek Sokolowski
Refugees from Ukraine rest after arriving to the railway station in Przemysl, Poland, Sunday, Feb. 27, 2022. Street fighting broke out in Ukraine's second-largest city Sunday and Russian troops put increasing pressure on strategic ports in the country's south following a wave of attacks on airfields and fuel facilities elsewhere that appeared to mark a new phase of Russia's invasion. (AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski)
Evgeniy Maloletka
People lie on the floor in the improvised bomb shelter in a sports center, which can accommodate up to 2000 people, in Mariupol, Ukraine, late Sunday, Feb. 27, 2022. Explosions and gunfire that have disrupted life since the invasion began last week appeared to subside around Kyiv overnight, as Ukrainian and Russian delegations prepared to meet Monday, Feb. 28, 2022 on Ukraine's border with Belarus. It's unclear what, if anything, those talks would yield. Terrified Ukrainian families huddled in shelters, basements or corridors, waiting to find out. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)
Evgeniy Maloletka
People sit and lie on the floor in the improvised bomb shelter in a sports center, which can accommodate up to 2000 people, in Mariupol, Ukraine, late Sunday, Feb. 27, 2022. Explosions and gunfire that have disrupted life since the invasion began last week appeared to subside around Kyiv overnight, as Ukrainian and Russian delegations prepared to meet Monday, Feb. 28, 2022 on Ukraine's border with Belarus. It's unclear what, if anything, those talks would yield. Terrified Ukrainian families huddled in shelters, basements or corridors, waiting to find out. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)
Evgeniy Maloletka
A woman and her children lie on the floor in the improvised bomb shelter in a sports center, which can accommodate up to 2000 people, in Mariupol, Ukraine, late Sunday, Feb. 27, 2022. Explosions and gunfire that have disrupted life since the invasion began last week appeared to subside around Kyiv overnight, as Ukrainian and Russian delegations prepared to meet Monday, Feb. 28, 2022 on Ukraine's border with Belarus. It's unclear what, if anything, those talks would yield. Terrified Ukrainian families huddled in shelters, basements or corridors, waiting to find out. (AP Photo/Evgeniy Maloletka)
