At midnight, my five-year-old and I already know that Russian jets are in the air heading to their launching points. Their targets for tonight? Me, my son, and my countrymen.
At around 3 am the missiles will come but as every parent knows, bedtime is a daily feature of near-religious importance. For now, he is going to bed in his own room. The knowledge that Russians are coming to kill us is not enough to halt our usual evening routine — the familiar disputes over brushing our teeth, the singing of lullabies, and key issues such as the choice of bedtime stories.
And, as expected, the 3 am alarm comes. The air raid siren pierces the silence — both outside to shake awake sleepy citizens, and on my phone. By 3:15, a stark notification confirms a “high level of danger,” signaling missiles aimed squarely at our region.
The “high level of danger” alert is the moment I move a light mattress into our apartment hallway and gently wake my son, telling him to bring along his pillow. We follow the “two wall rule” – finding refuge between barriers that shield us from the outside world and its missiles. Our windowless hallway protects us from shattered window glass, though it’s not a good option if a missile strikes our building directly.
We could head to the metro station shelter, just five to seven minutes away. But frequent nightly trips would simply turn us into stressed somnambulants. Life in Kyiv doesn’t pause for air raids; “there was an air raid” isn’t an excuse for lateness, not even for a nail appointment. Life must go on. Work and school open as scheduled each morning, even if some schools have now been built underground.
You learn to take things in your stride. What’s not easy is knowing that your choices are also choices for your children. The choices you made for them.
I spent some time working in Washington, DC until this January, with my son by my side. Returning home to Ukraine brought him much joy — back to his grandparents, his toys, his friends, and communication in his native language. Back to freedom of being at home — we even welcomed a shelter dog into our family.
Yet, I’ve also witnessed his fear. He doesn’t show it openly, but he asks questions.
He attends school, where bomb shelters are routine. He asks me about what will happen if the school building catches fire or is destroyed while the children are in the shelter. He asks me what will happen if Russians come directly to Kyiv.
He plans for our future if our home is destroyed, always finding new options to consider. Should we buy a new house in that case? Should we live at our summer house? Should we rebuild the apartment building and pick a new color for the kitchen walls this time?
It’s natural, I suppose. I don’t correct him with my adult realism. He’s building his own understanding of the world, of war, and our place in it — because no matter how adult I am, I can’t be certain my view of the future is more reasonable. The war did start after all, and it continues and that’s hardly reasonable.
He’s five, yet he channels fear into anger without my influence. He shouldn’t even know the word “death” probably, and certainly shouldn’t wait for anyone’s death — but he asks when that old man, Vladimir Putin, will finally die.
He wonders about the kindness and future of other children, which ought to be bright to him, questioning if Russian children will become soldiers too.
As a combat veteran, I could take pride in my son’s readiness to defend Ukraine in the future. But he doesn’t want that. He dreams of captaining a ship — not a warship but a vessel taking people to beautiful places.
And I agree — that would be wonderful.
But then I remember. Ukraine could be erased – that’s Putin’s aim — or the war might freeze in place only to erupt again later. So my boy’s ship may have to be armed. If it exists. And let’s hope it would be defending Ukraine, and not some other country further to the West, in the civilized world.
I keep these thoughts to myself.
I simply say, “Extreme danger now. Time to sleep in the hallway.”
He’s not surprised anymore, nor scared. He grabs his pillow and walks there, hopefully continuing to dream about little ships and the beautiful places they can take people to.
Lera Burlakova was a Democracy Fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA.) She is a Ukrainian journalist and former soldier who served as an infantrywoman from 2014-2017 after joining up following the Russian invasion of Crimea. Her war diary ‘Life P.S.’ received the UN Women in Arts award in 2021. She lives in Kyiv.
Europe’s Edge is CEPA’s online journal covering critical topics on the foreign policy docket across Europe and North America. All opinions expressed on Europe’s Edge are those of the author alone and may not represent those of the institutions they represent or the Center for European Policy Analysis. CEPA maintains a strict intellectual independence policy across all its projects and publications.
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