A Ukrainian father has described fearing it ‘might become my last day’ when groups of Russian soldiers searched his family home at gunpoint.
Andrii Lysogor, 39, fled Kyiv the day after Russian military attacks first began on February 24, with his wife and 10-year-old son.
They went to stay with his wife’s parents in the village of Babyntsi, 43 miles from the capital, where three separate groups of military personnel knocked on their door on the same day.
Mr Lysogor, a software engineer, said: ‘It’s not pleasant to be in front of a weapon, just pointing at you.
‘When you’re in front of a gun, it’s quite an unusual experience… a new experience, that (if) I do something wrong it might become my last day.
‘They were looking for weapons and Ukrainian soldiers.’
Mr Lysogor said after they had checked the house and were satisfied ‘nobody was hiding there’, the Russians took their mobiles’ SIM cards to prevent them from making calls.
He added: ‘Nobody was trying to apply force, they were speaking with us… my feeling was that they’re just professionals, the war is just their work.’
The family had been regularly moving to the basement when they heard military attacks on neighbouring towns, and decided to leave Babyntsi on Saturday – Mr Lysogor’s birthday – when a ‘sequence of tanks’ rolled in.
He went on: ‘Nobody was shooting our territory, we felt more or less safe, but later, a sequence of tanks came to our village and one of them stays next to (us), almost in front of our door.
‘You can imagine how you will feel yourself when the tank is next to you. The fact that me and my family are in a safe place is the best (birthday) present I can imagine.’
Since Russia's invasion of Ukraine began on February 24, the country has suffered widespread damages and loss of life amid a major bombing campaign.
Over 3 million people have fled, as Ukrainian cities face shortages of food, water, heat, and medicine - with thousands of British people opening up their homes to Ukrainian refugees.
Countries have retaliated by imposing sanctions on Russia and oligarchs such as Roman Abramovich, while large companies like Disney, Starbucks, McDonald's, and Coca-Cola have suspended business in the country.
However, despite these economic blows, Russian President Vladimir Putin hasn't shown any signs of calling off the attack anytime soon.
Mr Lysogor and his family drove to Rivne, western Ukraine, and at one point had to divert because of mines.
He said: ‘There was a sign that there are mines ahead, and it was on our road – we needed to take a decision to either move forward or not.
‘We continued to move… we discovered Russian soldiers that started to say it was truly dangerous to move forward, that it was war in action in front and most likely that we will be killed if we try move forward.
‘So we go back a couple of kilometres and start looking for another direction.’
Mr Lysogor and his family continued driving with a group of 50 other cars until they reached the motorway, arriving at their destination in Rivne after an eight-and-a-half-hour journey.
The family are now staying in a hotel but plan to look for permanent accommodation there, as Mr Lysogor and his family try to take their ‘brains back to normal reality’.
He said: ‘I never imagined that in Europe we can be at war again.
‘I am trying to adjust my understanding to the fact that war is happening in our country. It’s a new normal.’
Mr Lysogor said the decision to leave his parent-in-laws’ home was ‘truly hard’.
He said: ‘We understood that there are very few chances that everything will remain the same, whenever we return there are very few chances that the house will be untouched.
‘We saw they just parked the tanks in front of houses, like normal cars… it was quite a scary picture.’
Mr Lysogor compared the scene to a video game, adding: ‘We saw bombs in front of us, multiple pieces of rockets, burnt tanks and other equipment.
‘If you look for pictures from a scary shooter computer game, it’s very similar – everything is black, everything is damaged, nothing alive.’
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