Ukraine invasion: ‘War is coming’: Terror on the ground in Ukraine

As air raid sirens blared in Lviv, Yuliya Tychkivska bundled her three children into a car and looked for a way to ‘safety’.

Ukrainian servicemen seen next to a destroyed armoured vehicle, which they said belongs to the Russian army, outside Kharkiv, Ukraine. Picture: Reuters

As air raid sirens blasted through the morning air 32-year old Yuliya Tychkivska bundled her three children – aged, 2, 4 and 6 – into the car on Thursday morning and fled downtown Lviv for the relative safety of a relatives’ house outside the city.

Government warnings blared on loudspeaker throughout Lviv, the largest city in western Ukraine: “war is coming, be aware, be safe” in rough translation.

“The kids started crying, saying I don’t want war happening here, I don’t want daddy to die,” she tells The Australian, describing a “horrifying atmosphere” throughout Ukraine as the Russian military lay siege from the north, east and south of the country, by land, sea and air.

“The people are not ready to leave democracy and give up freedom, which is of huge value to us, it’s dignity; we fought for it”.

Tychkivska, a prominent native Ukrainian, executive director of the Kyiv-based Aspen Foundation and one of the architects of the 2014 Maidan Revolution that toppled the corrupt Yanukovych government, worries Russia won’t stop at Ukraine, which Putin considers a wayward province of a newly imperialist Russia.

“If Putin is not stopped now, who will be next? Poland? The Baltic States? … Sanctions are not enough,” she tells The Australian, urging the US to go further than the drastic sanctions laid out on Thursday in the US by president Biden.

“The best scenario today is to take us into to NATO as soon as possible, and help to defend us physically, because it’s not about just Ukraine, it’s about the world.”

People queue to a petrol station in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv. Picture: AFP

Tychkivska made the seven-hour car trip from Kyiv to Lviv, a city in the far west of the country about 70km from the Polish border, last week along with throngs of diplomats as full-scale war became more likely.

Yuliya Tychkivska and her family in Lviv.

She’s defiant and resolute, but realistic about Ukraine’s prospects without more help.

“Putin has a powerful army and he will use each possible option to make here a bloody mess, that’s his purpose for sure, he want us to capitulate, but we plan to defend our country,” she tells The Australian.

“Losses will be very significant; it’s crazy people should die like this in Europe in the 21st century.”

Russian launched a full-scale attack on Ukraine, firing missiles around Kyiv and at least a dozen other cities over the last 24 hours, with the aim of toppling the democratic government of Volodymyr Zelensky, who on Thursday called on all Ukrainians with military experience to fight.

“From today our states are on different sides of world history. The Russian state is on the path of evil,” the president said, following a deluge of condemnation of Vladimir Putin from political leaders around the world.

People take part in a shooting training course outside Lviv this week. Picture: AFP

Ukraine government officials say at least 137 people have died so far, while Ukrainian forces had killed around 50 Russian soldiers, according to various news reports.

“The government here has very big support; everyone is united,” Tychkivska says.

G7 leaders met Thursday morning virtually to thrash out what are expected to be the toughest ever economic sanctions imposed on another country, including the possible “nuclear option” of barring of Russia from the international payments system, SWIFT.

“I think he’ll not stop now, he wants to show the world he’ll do whatever he wants, he doesn’t f..king care about the rule of law, the Russian people or the Ukrainian people,” Tychkivska adds.

After a wave of Russian cyber attacks paralysed Ukraine’s banks, government websites, and even mobile phone connections ahead of Thursday’s invasion, Tychkivska sought to help co-ordinate Ukrainian cyber experts.

“We need to unite cyber experts to defend our strategic infrastructure as well as tell the world what horror is happening in Ukraine now,“ she explains, pointing out ordinary Ukrainians were shifting their personal communications from apps such as Viber and Telegram to Signal, which is better encrypted, for fear of being hacked.

I met Yuliya, later named by Forbes magazine in 2018 as one of its “top 30 under 30” in 2018, at a Reason Foundation awards night in New York in November 2014.

“She was one of the key figures in bringing down the crooked Ukrainian President, when she masterminded the Maidan Revolution Youth Revolt,” recalls Ron Manners, the Perth businessman and philanthropist who introduced us.

Her staff of 11, five in Kyiv, are either working from their home or even from the bomb shelters that have been set up throughout the country.

“When we have calls we hear bombings in the background; it’s horrifying, but people are confident, organised and ready to do something action-orientated”.

“Now is the time to be productive and to work,” she adds, explaining her husband Roman, the chief executive and founder of the Ukrainian Leadership Academy (for secondary school students), had also been evacuated from the west to the east.