Wednesday morning this week. Photographer Gunnar Bratthammer and I finish the work with a reportage at the hotel we are staying at in the city of Kharkiv. A three-day reporting trip in the northeast of Ukraine is over and we will drive back to the capital, Kyiv. – Are you listening, says Gunnar. Now the flight alarm goes off. We stop and listen. The siren comes in bursts. I find my mobile phone and open the app that also notifies me of flight alarms. The map of Ukraine flashes red. The alarm has gone out throughout the country. If this had happened three weeks ago, I would have felt a strong discomfort. I had probably gone down to reception and followed the signs to the hotel’s bomb room. Instead, Gunnar and I continued to work. Students in Kyiv continue their lessons in a subway station during a rocket attack earlier in February. Photo: VIACHESLAV RATYNSKYI / Reuters – What do you do when the flight alarm goes off? – What do you do when the flight alarm goes off? I have asked this question to practically every Ukrainian I have met since I arrived here at the beginning of February. Now I live in a country at war. On a regular basis, Russia sends rockets and drones into cities across Ukraine. The message from the authorities is crystal clear. Flight alarms should not be ignored. Apply for coverage! But what do the Ukrainians answer? Virtually everyone says they rarely go to shelters. Last week we interviewed a married couple standing in front of their bombed out home. Suddenly the flight alarm went off. What do we do now, I asked. The woman found the mobile phone. On social media, she could read that a Russian surveillance drone had been observed. No rockets, that is. It was just a matter of continuing the interview. The flight alarm is also notified via a separate app. Some days the alarm goes off several times. Photo: Kari Skeie / news Rockets on their way to Kyiv A couple of weeks ago I was woken up in the middle of the night by the flight alarm. The clock showed 4. A possible rocket attack, I could read on social media. I got dressed and stood in the hall. In Ukraine, there is something called the “two-wall rule.” If you cannot seek refuge, the recommendation is to stay in a building where you are protected by at least two walls. In my apartment it is in the hallway and in the bathroom. I wasn’t sure if I should go down into the basement of the block of flats or out into the darkness and on to a real bomb room. I stood at the door to hear if the neighbors were on their way out. No sounds. Within half an hour, the message came that the father was over. A few hours later, the sirens sounded again. I found my mobile again and opened the Telegram messaging service. Here there are countless channels that report the latest news in short messages. Now there was a greater seriousness. Rockets had struck in the counties of Kharkiv in the north and in Zaporizhzhya in the southeast. Then came reports of missile launches from Russian warships in the Black Sea. Governors reported rockets headed for their counties. A channel specializing in monitoring military activity in Belarus reported that Russian fighter jets had taken off from bases. A small discomfort began to settle in my stomach. Was it serious now? I looked out the window. Down on the street I could see that the morning rush was underway. Cars drove up and down the street. People strolled calmly. I still decided to go to a real bomb room. I put on my winter jacket, ran down the stairs and headed for the nearest metro station. On the way I passed people who didn’t seem to take the situation very seriously at all. The only one who sent worried glances up to the sky was me. – Is it serious now? When I got underground, I was both a little surprised and relieved. Here, at least, there were a couple of hundred people who had assessed the situation like me. Along the walls, people stood close together, staring down at their mobile phones. Some brought folding chairs and played cards. Others had found a seating surface. I lined up along a wall and started checking the telegram channels again. Here I learned that several rockets had been shot down by Ukrainian air defense. But rockets were also heading in the direction of Kyiv. Next to me stood a well-grown married couple, each with their own phone. Is it serious now, I asked. The woman shrugged. It will be a day where we don’t get to do much. This happens every 10-12 days. We have become used to this, she could tell. Which Telegram channels should I follow to get the best information, I asked. The woman pointed to her mobile phone and told about a channel where you can follow the direction of the rockets and thus more easily decide what is the right thing to do. The messages were still no worse than her husband going out into the street to have a smoke. When he returned he could tell that he had heard three explosions. – Oh, that doesn’t sound good, I said. – No danger. Far away, he said. It went well this morning. After a couple of hours the danger was over. At least 45 people, six of them children, were killed when this block of flats in Dnipro was hit by a Russian rocket on 14 January. Photo: Evgeniy Maloletka / AP Apartment block hit by rocket But sometimes it’s serious. In the city of Dnipro, things went really wrong in January. Over 40 people were killed when a Russian rocket hit a block of flats. Such attacks have also repeatedly knocked out water and electricity supplies to millions of Ukrainians. My neighbor Katja thinks the airplane alarms are scary. When Russia tried to take Kyiv last year, she, her husband and their five-year-old daughter lived on the outskirts of the capital. The sound of rockets, bombs and shooting is still in the body. I often get a message from Katja when the alarm has gone off. She wonders if I am safe and writes that I must not be afraid. Have to get everyday life together When the flight alarm goes off, the shops close. The buses stop running. Pictures from social media show school classes continuing their lessons in shelters. Ukrainians try as best they can to make everyday life work together. It probably has about 20 flight alarms since I came to Ukraine. At most, there have been five alarms in one day. Twice I have taken the trip to a bomb shelter. If I sought refuge every time, everyday life would not be connected. Back to Wednesday this week. Photographer Gunnar and I therefore continued to work even though the flight alert had gone off in the city of Kharkiv. When we checked out of the hotel shortly after, I asked the two ladies at the reception if there was cause for concern. One woman spread her arms and said: – Look at us. It has been like this for a year. We are alive. Everything is going to be OK. Have a safe trip to Kyiv and drive carefully.
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Living with flight alarms – news Urix – Foreign news and documentaries
