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The shooting started already on the second day – or, perhaps on the third. They blew up the bridges on the third day, our forces did, not to let the military vehicles [go to Kyiv]. Part of Irpin is separated by the railroad, and Hostomel with Antonov airport is nearby, and we were between the railroad and the airport. So, the brunt of the attack was directed precisely into this area <…> We were in this in-between zone, and we were sure that we are of no interest for them [the Russian troops]. Ok, even if they go come through [Irpin], what can do to us? Who cares about common people? Even if the Russians enter the town, they certainly won’t go from door to door and shoot people down! That’s how everybody thought.
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But the slaughter started, and a serious one. Every day the [Russian] troops were coming nearer and nearer. We don’t have basements in our houses, so the first days we would descend to the ground floor, a semi-basement kind of area. But when this happens all the time, and mostly at night, it’s is extremely exhausting. So, we all took our collapsible chairs and pillows and put them in the elevator shaft, and [when shooting started we] would go there, sleepy, and sit there. <…> The scariest thing was to get out of your apartment, because while you sitting inside, you are somehow separated from the outer world. And the most horrendous thing was when we were riding in the car: what we saw were transmission lines, shelled and lying under piles of garbage, destroyed houses… this was Apocalypse as such. When we were still sitting in our apartment, a shell exploded and caught on fire <…> and my husband shouts to me: “Get up, let’s go to the elevator!” – and I go: “I don’t have any strength for this. The second shell won’t hit the same place. I’m not going anywhere.”
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This was an Apocalypse – I never thought that this can be happening in our time. As if it were not you, as if everything was happening to somebody else, as if some kind of a horrible film was being shot. (UJRI_077_VV)