It’s been over six months of living with a full scale war in my country, and while it is slowly washing away from the group consciousness, it is still alive here. I decided I want to share my thoughts and observation with the wider audience for the following reasons:

  • To write my own story of events for the future me and my family
  • To share more context for my friends and colleagues from other countries

I would like to give a short digest of the most (to me) important events about Ukraine and my life every week. (Just know, I am not entirely sure I will be able to commit to this).


Practically the most important event of this week is Putin announcing a global mobilization of Russians and reminding us all again of the potential for a nuclear strike on Ukraine. It is interesting how I perceived a nuclear war before: an apocalyptic event in which I would just die, and how I perceive it now. I have estimated with Nukemap that a tactical 25 kt nuke most likely will not destroy my house much, as it is located in a distant neighborhood of Lviv. Still, I need to be prepared to hide my family in a shelter with emergency supplies for a couple of weeks, and then we may just survive it.

Over the last two weeks the State Emergency Service of Ukraine was testing the mobile emergency alarm system. Just recently I realized that they are getting prepared specifically for a nuclear strike. Most people currently ignore the usual air alarm in Lviv. We need something new to say “F*CKING RUN AND HIDE FOR YOUR LIFE IT’S COMING”.

And it is all just feeling insane: really getting prepared for a nuclear strike. My mind keeps telling me that it is impossible, so there are no reasons to waste energy on preparations. But I have to remind myself of a list of things I considered impossible before:

  • Russia actually invading Ukraine with its all forces
  • And Ukraine fighting back and winning

So it is not impossible to be nuked, and it is not impossible to still have a life after that.


I feel desperate quite often, as we are approaching winter. Government and news are saying to prepare for the worst: most likely no heating, potentially no electricity. All of Europe suffers without Russian gas, and there is no quick solution to that. I am doing a lot of maintenance in my apartments: installing heat panels, insulating all potential heat leaks, getting ready food and water supplies.

And we always have to think not just for ourselves: our army is the most important investment of our safety, and they constantly require help with supplies. Even though our government spends a tremendous amount of our budget on military (¾ of the whole Ukraine budget), a lot of important equipment is provided by crowd-funding: cars, drones, StarLinks, etc. With a couple of friends we have a volunteer group, raising money and buying supplies for our friends at frontlines. Just today I finished raising 600$ for a charging station for my close friend. He was drafted 3 months ago, and he is finishing training right now, getting ready to be deployed to the East.


Every week we are getting a new local joke. Since the famous “Russian warship”, jokes and memes help us to cope. This week there are two main themes:

Russian men fleeing mobilization. In particular at the Georgia border they have created a 20km long queue of people trying to get out of the country by land. Some of them are alarming about a “humanitarian crisis”. The best commentary to that: “Russians are the only nation who become refugees when THEIR country attacks the others”.

jesus-movie-meme

“Shchekavytsia event”. There is an ancient hill Shchekavytsia in Kyiv: its name derives from the name of one of the Kyiv founding brothers Shchek. Allegedly, a group of friends started an idea (“just for fun”): in case of a nuclear strike announced, gather at Shchekavytsia for a last time orgy. Started as an internal joke, it’s now having 4k people registered for the event, and more are coming. The best commentary to that: “To be Ukrainian is not just to be not afraid of a nuclear war, but also building plans for what to do at its afterparty”.