A 35-year-old Ukrainian describes what it's like in Kyiv right now: 'We keep our homes dark so that no one can see where to shoot'

• Michael Rud is a Ukrainian man living in Kyiv during Russia's war on Ukraine.
• He says he wants Russia to "leave and build their Russian world in their own fucking state, not ours."

I'm a 35-year-old man living in Kyiv, Ukraine with my mother, father, and two cats. Before the war, I was a fire performer in my spare time. I traveled all around Ukraine and performed at around 15 festivals over the summer.

Those months right after quarantine were a very happy time for me, but that feels like a distant memory now. I remember thinking that the height of the pandemic was bad, but it's nothing compared to what our country is going through right now. I want to share my story and what's happening around me to help our country's situation in whatever way I can.

I try to stay positive and to keep my good humor. But it's very difficult to deal with what's happening around me. We occasionally make jokes with each other, often about Russia, but we mostly talk about war and where the most recent bombs have hit. I hadn't heard from my friend in Kharkiv in a very long time and I was getting worried, but I just heard that they're ok.

The day before the war I was in the Carpathian mountains where I went skiing with my father. It's a trend on Instagram to show the last photo of you before the war started. Here's mine:

On the road back to Kyiv, we saw two planes fighting. Or that's what I thought was happening. It also could have been a plane with a rocket following it. I didn't get to see how it ended.

From my window in Kyiv I can hear the rockets. I can also see the flashes from the explosions. Although they're quite far away from me right now, you can still see it and feel the rumblings and vibrations. The darker the evening gets, the easier it is to see the flashes, so night time is particularly difficult to get through.

Our windows used to glow in the evenings, but not anymore. We keep our homes dark so that no one can see where to shoot.

We also hear them easier because our city is so quiet right now. It used to be busy with people coming from work, going shopping, going to the gym, and to the cinemas. There are no cars on the roads and our streets are absolutely empty. Many people have already left Kyiv. Maybe coming back to Kyiv after my trip was a mistake, but I don't know. No one knows what's best right now.

People are trying to help each other in any way possible. Many people, including myself, are donating money or equipment to the army. Some people are buying food for the elderly, taking in abandoned pets, and offering free help such as therapy sessions over the phone. People who were never friends before this are helping others to flee dangerous cities and offering food and shelter to soldiers and regular people. Others are making the "hedgehog" anti-tank blockades pictured in the photo above. We also help by trying to tell the world about what is happening over YouTube and Instagram. We're on the warfront, too.

Many people in Ukraine feel both hopeless and helpless.

We have bomb shelters, but its unclear if those are safer than staying in our homes. I would say that they are not professional shelters, more like makeshift ones.

So I plan to stay here in my home in Kyiv. I think most people I know are choosing to shelter in place as well.

We have some food in our refrigerator for now, so we will be okay for some time. The shops were closed all of yesterday. I went out today but there was a giant line so I decided not to go. I would have had to stand in line for three hours, and I wasn't sure they would have any food left by then.

My mom's friend went to a different shop today in our district and was able to get things like eggs and bread, but she had to wait more than two hours. Many people are trying to buy up all the food at once which is making things even harder.

If Ukraine doesn't get more help, I don't know what will happen to us.

Of course we want the Russian forces to just go away, but they can't just go away. That is unrealistic. They want to change the government here, or they want more territories.

We are in a very difficult situation because they have numbers and sophisticated fighting technologies. Our whole country fears an air strike. We are scared of our world falling on our heads. We try to have hope. We hope that everything will come back, but our infrastructure is already damaged — our airports and telecom towers have been attacked.

The air raid alarms that indicate attacks ring all through the day and night — we probably hear them 20 times a day. We feel disappointment, disbelief and of course huge fear. My mother is feeling so panicked, especially since negotiations with Russia failed.

I worry that if the war goes on for months, it will go on for years.

This needs to be stopped in a week or less, or else people will flee Europe, and our economy will suffer further. All we want is for Russia to leave so we can rebuild and go back to work.

This is a real war, even if it is not officially called that everywhere yet, and this war has united the Ukrainian people.

It seems that the Russian forces really thought they would come here and that our people would happily greet them. But our army is doing quite well and, most importantly, we believe in them. We are strong people.

And we say to Russia, in the most impolite way possible, to go and fuck themselves. We just want them to leave and build their Russian world in their own fucking state, not ours.