International- A
Kyiv family told Insider their lives have "turned to hell" by the Russian invasion. - The couple spends their days waiting in line for medicine and checking on family.
Larisa Likhotinskaya and her husband Vadim never envisioned a day when Russian troops would invade their city of Kyiv, but they have, she said, and "life has turned to hell."
The couple shares a home with Vadim's elderly mother near the city center, where every day has become unpredictable.
"Not only do we not know what will happen from one hour to the next, but also from one minute to the next," Larisa Likhotinskaya told Insider in a Skype call Tuesday, moments before an air raid siren was activated. "That's because we're used to living in peace. We never would have thought that
Speaking from their home, where they can hear machine gunfire on neighboring streets, the Likhotinskys told Insider about how their lives have been turned upside down by the attack. Their nephew Victor Ovchinnikov, a Harvard researcher, translated their Russian and Ukrainian to English.
Each day since the invasion began, the Likhotinskys have been splitting their time between their house and a nearby underground parking garage that has been turned into a bomb shelter. They would spend more time in the shelter, Larisa said, but Vadim's mother has back pain that makes it difficult to leave home.
When the curfew is lifted each morning, after small stretches of turbulent sleep, the Likhotinskys go to a window in their apartment and look outside to see if their street appears safe. If it is, they walk to pump nearby to collect fresh drinking water before Vadim leaves to wait in line at a market or pharmacy for his mother's medications and whatever food he can find.
The lines are long and stretch down city streets, he told Insider. When he gets inside, which can take up to five hours, the shelves have limited supplies and no fresh food. Heart and blood pressure medications are also in low supply, which makes life especially difficult to seniors.
"Younger and stronger people might be able to drive somewhere and buy food and buy supplies, but it's especially hard for the elderly who are essentially stuck in their apartments," Larisa Likhotinskaya, who works as a secretary in President Volodymyr Zelensky's administration, told Insider.
"It's almost impossible to travel through the city psychologically, but also physically, because of the bombing raids," Larisa Likhotinskaya said.
The rest of the day, the couple will try and reach their family and friends in other parts of the city and country to make sure they are safe.
They fear most for their two adult children and grandchildren who live at the edge of the city, close to the Belarus border, which is near the front lines of the attack.
"Where my kids and my grandkids are is probably even less safe than where we are and I cannot get to them," she said, adding they have no electricity or running water.
Negotiations may not be possible, Vadim fears
When Vadim Likhotinsky speaks to his relatives on the outskirts of Kyiv, they tell him about corpses in Russian military uniforms on the streets with their limbs blown from their bodies.
"His relatives are saying that the troops are coming in mostly very hungry, and they're either asking for food or robbing the stores," Ovchinnikov said, translating for his uncle.
"This is the scariest moment of my life," Vadim Likhotinsky said.
"This is only my opinion, but a strong force can only be repelled by another strong force," he added, when asked what the Ukraine needs from the rest of the world. "It would be nice if the Russian parents saw their children that are torn into pieces and left behind by their own officers and commanders. But unfortunately they will not see that."
Larisa Likhotinskaya's requests are less specific.
"I want nothing at all. I don't want food. I don't want water. I want peace to my family and my friends," she said, crying. "I need peace for my country and my people. I want the suffering to end."