The main thing is that I live!
Chief editor of the ITV news agency
On February 24, 2022, Lyudmila, the editor-in-chief of the ITV news agency, who lived in Gostomel and worked in Irpen, woke up early. It is dark all around, the husband's place in the bed is empty, thoughts are disturbing.
"I leave the bedroom. Volodya meets me. He utters one single word: "It has begun." It did not require any explanation, because what exactly began was clear to me, a media person. I was warned about the war..."
Their children and grandchildren have just left the country for vacation. "But anxiety is growing in the soul..."
"But anxiety is growing in the soul..."
While the woman and her colleagues were making news, enemy helicopters were already flying over their office in the direction of Gostomel. Loud explosions were heard at home. "And at this moment fear finally covers us. We make a decision instantly: we have to leave," the woman says.
Traffic jams on the Zhytomyr highway. "They turned into some forest - and went "following the call of the soul" to their homeland, to Kropyvnytskyi." We went to Lyudmila's sick mother. "I told her that the war had started, our city was being bombed, and we had to flee. I asked her to hold on, not to die."
A new skill is to live in the present
The woman recalls: "Those who remained in Gostomel sent us terrible videos. The Rashists bombed our floodplain so that the water rose in a column and spilled all around, forming lakes in people's gardens... Our house was at the epicenter of the fighting. In front of the gate - broken enemy equipment, charred corpses of Russian soldiers, shot peaceful cars."
Then there was the evacuation to Lviv, the death of Lyudmila's mother, whom her relatives buried without her. And such a welcome homecoming - to the burning of one's house...