Ukraine Diaries: Olena

28-year-old Olena Mazurenko has kept diaries since the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. She shares them with More to Her Story below.

Kyiv Region, Ukraine — March 10, 2022

It feels like the past has ceased to exist; it was just a dream. There is no future.

Everything is decided by the second… 60 seconds in a minute. It's been like this for 15 days. It seems to me that I have become callous. I look at the photos of burning cities, and there are no more tears. It's just empty.

How many more deaths? How did this happen?

Sometimes I want tears, but there are none. The tank is empty; it was emptied in the first days of the war. I still can't get used to this word...

Sometimes I forget when it's quiet. And then I hear jet planes and explosions...and I remember - we are at war. I never thought it would come. Words turned out to be a beautiful mirage. They don't mean anything anymore. The world seems to be saving us, but it is still hesitating. Our life seems to be valuable, but not as valuable as other people's. We seem to be Europeans, but we are not. So who are we?

When will the war end? And will it end? And what will happen after the last explosion? And where will we be? I ask myself, I ask.

Is God purifying us or punishing us? Is this the beginning or the end?

How many...how many more days? Or months? How many years?

We were all caught up in this whirlwind. And we are spinning like this, spinning.

What will happen to me? Who will I be?

It seems that I am carried by the current, and I do not even argue.

March 26, 2022

We were told to evacuate...

There was a setback. My eyes look bloodshot. There was a war.

Now, the fire is not scary, nor the smoky sky.

The clean sky is scary...

When an explosion is heard somewhere far away, and then silence, then another explosion, silence... and you wait. There will probably be more.

It's March 26th. I'm almost 26. Now I'm looking at the numbers strangely.

Now I look at the sky strangely. 

Now the word "peaceful" will forever be a luxury.

Now the morning has become sacred. 

Now, the night is not a fairytale; the stars are not clear...

everything has become different.

Prayers at night became a mantra. And the tears are now like torrential rain, they start unexpectedly and disappear quickly. This is the ritual of war.

At first, it all looked exciting, but now, there’s a long road covered in blood.

Now, death does not seem absurd or shocking.

Now, the death of people with red armbands causes joy. But that is just an excuse—the enemy is not a person—the enemy is not even an insect, as the gray matter told us.

What did you do to us, war? Changed our priorities, divided us into camps. Now silence is tantamount to treason. Now the beautiful words about world peace are no longer worth anything. Either you call black black, or you just haven't seen death yet.

Talking about peace has somehow become uncultured. We don't like ambiguity.

March 28, 2022

The sounds of explosions bring you to consciousness. This is the new routine. 

Instead of daisy petals, we started counting explosions.

The siren became a mournful song, just as resistance to will became an element of blood.

This is how a nation is reborn.

Now, our song will be about February and our invincibility. 

It will be about the fact that will is stronger than fear.

April 4, 2022

Somehow, it got cold. There was a siren, an explosion, a cry, and death. 

I look at photos, I hear about death. I am afraid that I can no longer cry. I am afraid that the news of the death does not shock me. The fact that a dead body does not cause me pain scares me.

War….what have you done to my soul? Now there is no song. April is not normal. It is April, and there is snow in the yard. It is out of a sense of solidarity. Even spring cannot be itself because our earth is crying.

Ghost towns are not just in the movies now. They are outside my window.

Our land cries while burying its children. Do you hear this sad song, too? The wind blows it everywhere.

April 5, 2022

Genocide was officially announced to us. This is what the Russian mass media said. Reasons? We are Nazis, and therefore we must be forcibly re-educated. That is, to make dead. 

The dead do not speak.

April 7, 2022

Quiet, very quiet. Nights are like that. But when there is a war... a long pause is the most terrible. Everything goes quiet, and then...an explosion. And these sounds, they play with you. You think: "If I didn't die then, maybe now is my finale?" These are my feelings in the first seconds of the sound of explosions or airplanes.

It's my birthday in the war, and I have strange feelings. My desires have descended several levels below, from self-fulfillment to security—Maslow's pyramid.

Now, the calls have become warmer, and the messages are more sincere. But where to go next? Everything around us has changed, and all desires have fallen into an eternal sleep. Is this a fairy tale?

26. I reached this milestone. Now the clock starts over, but those years are already in the past. My year began in war.

It has become such a long dream. Will I wake up? 

April 13, 2022

A plane flew by, and my body froze. I was waiting for only one thing: there must be an explosion. I have only such associations with the plane now. Now, I do not fall asleep looking at him; now, I tremble and listen to the sky.

May 27, 2022

How we could touch the sky.

Draw clouds and wash away the blood with rain, that blood...

When you see the parched earth, when everything around is on fire.

When cold rage settles in hearts instead of spring laughter.

When the sky turns crimson 

When instead of birdsong - the sounds of horrors.

And we talk about death... but death is only a guide.

Human hatred is a thief. 

In the name of what? What God and what faith?

There are no winners in war. The triumphant chariot rolls on the bones and has traces of blood.

Victory will not bring back the dead; they will not be resurrected.

The victory of the future is not worth the sacrifices of entire generations. Who cast lots that this generation should die and another live? There are people everywhere.

People. People. We forgot about people.

Who will save our souls? Who will heal our bodies? Who will return the youth? Who will bring laughter back to children's faces?

People pray to the Gods and build altars for them.

People tear religion apart and interpret it freely.

Words are mute until you put your own interpretation on them.

We are again in bondage as we were a thousand years ago.

Where is forgiveness? Where is love? Where is "love your neighbor"?

But these were only words, only a mirage. Because we still make human sacrifices in the name of our greed.

Because there is no God for people, the lot is cast on the innocent, on those who have not even been born yet.

Will they wake up, and what will they see? Ruins. Because someone behind the scenes said that Ukrainians are not people.

And we are people. Eyes, hands, thoughts. We are people from people.

I remember, and I hope you will not forget, that Ukraine is the land of free and happy people!

October 3, 2022

In war, you feel the least like a woman because war takes life without asking for gender. When a rocket hits a house, it destroys everyone's life. 

But here are the sad statistics of the burial excavations in the city of Izyum: 215 women, 195 men, 5 children. They were peaceful people.

I cried in the first months of the war. Now, my eyes simply do not have the ingredients for such a process. War makes people pragmatic, cold. There is no time for tears because when a rocket flies, you just have to hide; being a woman will not help here.

We have all become political. Now, our requests are not clothing, entertainment, movies, or banal communication on social media. Now we watch interviews with the head of the main intelligence, the head of the SBU, the commander-in-chief, and the president. We watch videos with the military and allow ourselves to cry when we see how happy people from the de-occupied cities are. We look at analytics; we discuss weapons and political alliances. We are happy when we hear that thanks to our donations, the satellite found the enemy and helped the military to eliminate them. Our joy has become so, and so have our requests.

But you know, sometimes I panic because I can't see anything ahead. It's not just about safety—my house is safe—I am talking about the country. I love Ukraine, honestly. Ukraine gave me everything I know. For Ukrainians, the country is a holy land. 

Ukraine is a beautiful woman; we call her mother. When she hurts, it hurts us too. We are forever connected by inextricable threads of fate.

October 21, 2022

War takes your life little by little. You seem to be alive, and you seem to be ready for anything.

Explosions cause you to forget peace, and you are again terrified by every sound. You are afraid again.

Death is the end, and you are afraid of its possibility. You were, and you are not. Old age has not come yet, but I'm afraid of it.

Has war made us brave? Did the war take months that could have been happy?

For almost 8 months, you freeze at the sounds of airplanes. Harbingers of misfortune.

And more. There is no tomorrow yet. I am reborn every second.

December 20, 2022 (300th day)

Life is like a book because you forget what was on the previous pages.

I thought that I would remember the details, every day, every event. But no... can it be just me? Every day is a new life, and yesterday… a ghostly dream. Maybe it's easier that way—not so scary, not so sad.

Fears and joys are momentary. They come unexpectedly and disappear spontaneously. All there is is lingering fatigue.

Now we are small children again, covering our ears with our hands so as not to hear the war. We close our eyes so that the rivers of the soul free our hearts from overflowing sadness and powerlessness.

February 21, 2023

Sometimes, there are simply no words. You cry. You think about everything you can.

I’ve learned that grief shakes out of you not only joy but also anger.

You feel detached. The past no longer exists, only memories. And the future does not exist yet. There is now, but it spins like a spinning top near an abyss.

Even so, there is still hope.

May 20, 2023

May. 

You walk along the road as if nothing happened. There is no night, and we are again in the hustle and bustle of business.

The darkness has receded... but in other cities, it is everywhere. 

Will we forget?! Will it all be a dream? I do not know. Can our souls contain so many memories of grief...

If words dissolve in time, will we forget the feeling that made us die for a while and then resurrect? 

September 21, 2023

Sounds… sometimes they play games with you. You will wake up, or you will not wake up. It will be scary or empty. It will become known only at the moment.

And then...do you sleep, or do you just go on living?

Today, words woke me up, not sirens or explosions — amazingly. Is it really such a deep sleep? I do not know.

Don't cry. Live, I have to keep telling myself. We have to, and we should. 

If they asked me to describe the war in words, I would remain silent. War cannot be expressed in words. War permeates your body, your thoughts. War throws you into weightlessness, where uncertainty is an everyday thing.

I am like a child who persistently builds a sandcastle, and the waves of the sea make a flood again and again.

But you live. You have to. You have to. You have to.

Reassessing the reasons for joy. Sky, trees, water... It turns out we have so many reasons. Many.

November 12, 2023

Explosions, and then a siren. Fear. I am alone in the middle of the night walls. Fatigue. How much is enough for me? How many more days, years? What will happen to me later? Will I be alive? Will I exist only as a body?!

Will these days become a dream? Will I forget their minutes? Will time turn everything into spontaneous, fragmented memories in the middle of the night or in broad daylight? Will there be seconds of darkness, and will fear run through my being?

Am I an obedient slave of events? Fate? Have I been thrown into this world to suffer, only if I am lucky enough to end up in a garden of bliss amidst the metaphorical clouds?

Who am I? I am an animal destined to suffer from its own defects. Am I a murderer of myself?

I do not know anything. Nothing.

I'm afraid. I'm alone. I'm in the middle of a war. I don't have a plan. God, please give me strength.

December 15, 2023

The bathroom is now my fortress.

When the siren is not alone, when you are notified: Attention, take cover, Kyiv... Then you sit on your haunches, close your eyes, and pray, incessantly praying to God. God, is it today?

Seconds in a noisy bathroom. Someone writes in the group chat: "A rocket flew over the stadium." The chat is my commune. There is joy; there is sorrow, and of course collective anger at those damn rockets.

This is the war of the 21st century. The world looks at us and cares; while we choke with fear, we die from missiles.

After the siren, you sit silently in the same bathroom, and you don't even pray. Because thoughts are dumb, they are tired of thinking. And you no longer understand reality. Although you can start laughing, that kind of hysterical, tired laugh when rockets fly over you.

December 17, 2023

Bathroom. Extract. I'm sleepy. A set of prayers. Social media. A stray missile somewhere between the regions. Night. Today is already Sunday.

My poems are still sleeping. December days are full of worries, rockets, martyrs. Do they want to torment us with constant sirens? Definitely…

December 21, 2023 (666th day)

There is no strength for prayers. There is no emotion to realize the tragedy of this war. Tears and words lost their value. You just live, periodically hiding in the bathroom, twitching from extraneous sounds.

But you live…a strange balancing act between joy and hysteria.

History tells us about these days, although it is not right. She tells about the war; she will devote hundreds of books to it. But today's war, which I am experiencing now, these sleepy moments mixed with despair... will be just a date on paper, will be just a statistic.

What will happen next, and will all these cynical prophecies be fulfilled? I will forget these days, and the whole war will be a memory for me... But that will be tomorrow, and I still have to live today...

January 2, 2024

It feels as if I live dozens of different lives or simply that my essence already has several entities. I'm sad, I'm funny, I'm angry, I'm mutilated, I'm motivated, I'm brave...and each of these emotions can replace each other in a matter of seconds. So, there are several selves in me, or have I simply broken my essence?

I hide in the bathroom; I laugh at jokes; I go to the store…there is only a short time gap between these actions. I am forced to adapt to external circumstances in order to survive.

Now I'm sitting in the bathroom, and it's almost three in the morning. Why? Because drones are circling around. And I think: Should I wake up my mother? Probably, as while I was sleeping, I did not hear all this, but it turned out like this. Am I afraid? Terrible. The sounds are scary because they make my body tremble.

January 3, 2024 (679th day)

War crowns the holidays with crimson lights... 

Now we celebrate the holidays quietly so as not to stir up disaster. But it still comes uninvited. And we freeze in the midst of flashes...

In the past...we cried, screamed. Our days were turning to darkness, but now, now in this hybrid war, we have the same hybrid emotions. Days of mourning were mixed with moments of strange smiles. Why? To survive…

We sit in silence after landing and look at the walls. We want to sleep. Do not shout over the silence.

...broken houses, mutilated souls, confused animals.

In a dark bathroom, the world narrows to a couple of square meters. The world turns black. And then there was silence, the withdrawal of anxiety. And the white light of the yard.

Time... a day filled with silence, tears. We were sleepily aware of reality. We wanted to sleep.

Day. The next day.

The street, against the background of white snow, we look like black ghosts dreaming aimlessly.

It's the third day of the new year, and New Year's music is playing in the market. I go home with the packages, and white snow falls on me. We have to live. When will spring come? Will our souls come to life? Will the earth be covered with flowers?

February 7, 2024

I would like to learn how to turn off memories and erase feelings so that I do not think about the past and torment my soul.

I hope the everyday sounds of life will eventually become simple sounds again.

As someone said, “One must be able to survive the moments when it seems that everything is lost.”

Tomorrow will come, and today will be just a distant memory. The ravines will be overgrown with flowers, things will change, but people will not return.

When many, many years pass, and we look at the past, what kind of feelings will overtake us? Will we sit and remember, or will we retreat from the mirages of the past and hide in mundane affairs? I do not know. Everyone will have a story that lasts a lifetime.

Where do the moments spent in grief and despair go? And those minutes when you were clutching something with your hands, squinting at the sound of rockets and explosions heard from afar, then from nearby... Where do these minutes fly away? Do they dissolve in space and become a caustic taste on the lips? I do not know.

War makes you ignorant. 

February, February again...

Or again or still the same. The shortest month is the longest in my life and the darkest; no wonder spring is ahead.

Live. I want to live. Wars end; this one will too. You have to believe.

March 22, 2024

Notification at 3:33 in the morning: Missiles have been launched, they should cross the border of Ukraine in an hour.

A candle is burning and I just say: "Lord, have mercy!" because I don't have the strength for long prayers.

Nausea and desire to sleep. But, I am waiting, a strange waiting…the fear of death… anger, begging, and deceptive indifference... I have everything at this moment.

The war taught me to plan within limits, but everything is vague...

Will it be like yesterday? Or what? Delusion? I do not know. I know that I know nothing. That's what Socrates said, but I don't want to argue.

Three hours of anxiety and despair, prayers and entreaties. We caught our breath, and watched the news, listened to the sounds... And it seemed that the morning would not come, but the sky turned blue again. But is it for everyone?

You can't be happy when rockets don't hit your city, because they hit other cities. There are also people like you. And they also want to live, they deserve to live. Their hearts are crying too, and I wail in unison with them.

Spring is filled with days of sorrow, how many losses today? Human lives.

I ask God to take away this harvest...