How the Editors of Vogue Ukraine Survived the First Days of War With Russia

I was different after our flight from Kyiv, like I had grown and aged. Today I realized that I had never cried in those nine days, because we need cold-bloodedness and hard-headedness now more than ever.

Valeria Lacoma, Editor of Vogue.ua

February 24 at 5 a.m. I was awakened by a man shouting: “Lera, wake up! War has begun!” I was shocked. “Surely, he’s being dramatic,” I thought, but I still went to get out my suitcases. For an hour, I threw everything I needed into them. At that time nobody understood the scale of the tragedy. We decided to go out of town. We thought it would be quiet there. When we drove out, it became clear that the situation was very serious. Tremendous traffic jams, hundreds of cars trying to get fuel, wild lines at supermarkets, closed pharmacies. Fear in everyone’s eyes. I started accessing social media and found scary videos of Russians vilifying our country! Later I got a message that it was a mistake to leave the city, because we were in a dangerous place, even with Russian troops and bodyguards advancing in our direction.

The lack of a bomb shelter, the military base nearby, and the information that tanks were coming 500 meters away from our house made the situation more difficult every day. For the first time I felt bombs exploding; the bombers were flying over my head, and the bridges connecting us to the city were collapsing. I practically didn’t sleep for three days. I cannot put into words the fear and helplessness that overwhelmed me when I thought we could be cut off from the city altogether: without connection, food, water, medicines.

Each day the feeling that life could end at any moment grew stronger and stronger. With God’s help we were able to get out of Kyiv. The journey was long and difficult: some roads were blown up, explosions were heard everywhere, fights took place in the air, we had to go by detours and pass dozens of checkpoints, where everything was not always smooth. We waited in long queues and waited out curfews in cities. I prayed that we would be safe and that we would find petrol because without it we could get stuck driving through fields. Luckily, everything worked out. I am now outside Kyiv, and I am still traveling through Ukraine. I hope this nightmare will soon be over.

Daria Slobodyanyk, Culture Editor

When the war began, I was asleep. I woke up when my boyfriend’s phone rang. “It’s started,” said his nurse colleague. It was 5:37 in the morning. A few minutes later, we felt the bombing—we found out later that our air defense system had done its job. I remember not believing until then that it was war, and wondering whether I would go to work. And then another explosion and another one (missiles hit the military base in Brovary). I never went to work. We immediately realized we would stay in Kyiv. My boyfriend is a physician, and he works as a paramedic in a military hospital in Kyiv. At 7 a.m. he was called to work at the military hospital. Every day he tells me that there are not many wounded in the hospital—and that’s the best news I’ve heard in the last few days.

I have a certain trait that in crises I am very quick to mobilize. The main thing is to think of something to do. And during a war there is a lot to do. I also wrote to my colleagues on the site at about 8 a.m. that I will stay in Kyiv and am ready to cover the war for Vogue. I would never have imagined that the fashion magazine website would look like this, but these are the realities of our time: Instead of looking at trends and interviews with celebrities, we write about how to stop the bleeding and how to help the Ukrainian army. Many people have written about the fact that we stayed in Kyiv. But I do not see anything special in it—I do not have children for whom I am responsible, there is a parking area, which my neighbors and I use as a shelter; there is a car in which I can sleep, sitting upright. We didn’t choose whether to leave or not. We’re just here, that’s all. I try to do everything I can: I cook buckwheat for the local defense ministry, buy liquids for the military hospital, and help the IT army, which was created by our ministry of digital transformation. My neighbors and I are building a barricade in front of the house, and the work I am doing in my neighborhood is the least I can do. I strongly hope to do even more—for example, take food to Okhmatdit or other hospitals, which, according to volunteers, now have many patients and doctors in need of help. But I wish the siren did not go off so often in Kyiv, because my life is only a matter of minutes lived between sirens.

We spent four nights in the shelter. How many more to come? Sirens blare in Kyiv at least five times per night. The first night everything was shivering—I know, there was a battle for the National Guard base near us. I don’t want to think about what will happen if they shoot at them from the sky.

Instead of thinking about death, I think about simple things. About the good coffee, which I’ll drink in Podol when we have overpowered our enemy. About how I’ll wash my hair normally. For now I’m afraid to wash my hair—I’m constantly thinking about the fact that I won’t hear the alarm through the noise of the water.

Every morning at 8 a.m., I wake up in hiding to my father calling me on the phone. He is staying in Odessa, and I know for us these are the most important phone calls in the world. Was I really scared those first days? I think not. I am constantly thinking about those who are on the front lines and who are really important. Yaroslav, my brother-in-law’s colleague who is defending us right now, or Vanya, my 20-year-old brother-in-law who is fighting in Chernihiv, or paramedics in ambulances being shot by Russian terrorists, or journalists who are reporting live from all the really hot spots. Or our president. Or thousands of other people who care. The war has made us unusually close to one another—a valuable lesson of life, but its price is too high.