‘It only got really scary when the sirens stopped warning of air strikes’

Together with her two sons and mother, Yulia Borisova (39) managed to flee the besieged city of Mariupol on March 18. On de Volkskrant she tells how, secluded from the outside world, she managed to survive between the shell impacts.

“At first, the explosions were loud, but far away. I lived in the Liveberezhny district of Mariupol with my sons Daniel (14) and Mikhail (4). My oldest son David (19) serves in the army in Odessa. My mother lived in the easternmost quarter, where the first Russian missiles landed on February 24.

‘When the shooting started, I immediately picked her up. But it quickly became too dangerous for me too. On the third day of the war a grenade fell near my house. My ex-husband offered to let us temporarily live in his and his current wife’s apartment. Their apartment is in the Illichivsky district, in the middle of Mariupol. I went there with my mother and sons.

“The shooting continued. On March 2, power lines were hit, leaving nearly the entire city without electricity and heating. Within a few days, the water supply also stopped and gas stopped flowing through the pipes.

“In those days, more and more people panicked. There was a fear of death everywhere, not only from the constant shelling, but also from hunger and cold. It was an abnormally cold spring. It was 10 degrees below zero outside. Inside it was around 6 degrees. Washing ourselves was almost impossible because of the cold.

‘To get any water at all, while the mortars were falling around us, I had to go to a stream near the Azovstal factory on the edge of town. I prepared food in the garden in front of the apartment; there I made a big fire to cook on.

‘Meanwhile, the sirens were constantly sounding, warning of artillery shelling and air raids. Then we ran to the basement. But it got really scary when the sirens stopped going because the electricity had gone out. As a result, people no longer had time to go to the shelters in time. In those days I was awakened several times by the terrible sound of explosions nearby and the sound of flying glass, shattered by the shock waves of the explosions.

‘One morning I was going to the garden to cook when all of a sudden rockets came down. I was lucky, I was close to a bomb shelter. But my 4-year-old son and my mother were still on the fourth floor. I couldn’t help them. It was the worst moment in my life. The explosions were so loud that the basement shook. I thought the whole apartment would be in ruins.

“But I think my prayers have helped. The grenades had landed on the other side of the street. Before the war I was not really religious. But in the bomb shelter, praying and meditating helped me. There was nothing else: no internet and not even music from my phone. Praying was all I could do to save my family and my city.

“Like many other residents, me and my ex-husband decided to leave the city with our families. There was no corridor as far as we knew, but we had nothing to lose. In the city, we could also die at any time and in any place.

“We went with two cars. In ours, my ex-husband was behind the wheel. I sat in the back with my mother, my two sons and my cat Phil. The roads were partly broken. Every now and then we heard grenades hitting. At the edge of town we got stuck in a long line of cars. Behind us I saw black smoke from a grenade impact. I closed my eyes and tried to convince myself they wouldn’t hit us.

‘It worked. We got away. In Mangush, a town west of Mariupol, we got a mobile connection again and we made contact with a woman from a volunteer organization. Further on, in the village of Osipenko, we could spend the night with her.

‘We are now with family in the city of Dnepropetrovsk, where we can catch our breath. I want to go to western Ukraine with my children, to a good friend. Then we might go to Germany, but I haven’t decided yet. In any case, it is too dangerous to stay in Ukraine. After what I’ve seen, I don’t think any city will be safe here anymore.’