Report from Ukraine

Before the invasion Already in December, I have a feeling that something bad will happen. We have good access to media in Ukraine and can follow the deployment of Russian soldiers and military equipment along the Ukrainian borders. But most people don’t take it seriously, including our politicians. When my husband and I leave for a skiing trip in January, I tell our daughters to follow their uncle’s instructions in case something happens while we were away, and they just think I am being silly.

Fleeing Kyiv On 24 February, I am woken by the phone at 4:30am. It is my VELUX colleague from Chernivtsi, asking what is going on in Kyiv. I check Facebook and realise that Russia has started to bomb different Ukrainian cities. Shortly after, I hear an explosion. I wake my husband and daughter and tell them that we need to leave the city right away. We only take medicine, important documents and our family pets with us and leave the apartment. With two other family members in the car, we head for my parents’ house in Lviv in Western Ukraine. At this point, the streets are full of cars and people fleeing the city. The queues at the petrol stations are massive, everyone needs fuel. We did not think Putin would actually invade, so no one is really prepared. Luckily, our car has a full tank, so we can embark on the 12-hour drive straight away. While we are on the road, our general manager Yuri gets phone calls from Patrick McKenzie (VP PacRim+) and Kristine Belska (Director Export Sales), asking about the situation. They want us to pay all our Ukrainian employees two months' salary in advance, so that they have extra money available if needed. I get this done just before all Ukrainian VELUX accounts are blocked from the global company network.

First weeks in Lviv We have reached my parents’ house in Lviv, but the situation in Kyiv is getting worse. I call friends and colleagues and try to convince them to leave the city – some of them bring their families to our house in Lviv, and at one point we are 22 people, 7 cats and three dogs living together. It is hard to sleep in these first weeks after the invasion. No one knows what will happen, it is like a living nightmare. There is an explosion very close to our building in Kyiv and we are terrified for the people we know, who have stayed behind. Including my mother-in-law who is 91 and too old to transport. Fortunately, they are unharmed. We stay busy by helping families from other parts of Ukraine cross the border to Poland and transporting goods back. We try to keep occupied so we don’t think too much about the situation. After the war in Crimea in 2014, I volunteered at the central train station in Kyiv, where soldiers who had rotated back from the front could rest and get some meals free of charge, and I have a large network of volunteers from that period. They are now contacting me from all over Ukraine, knowing that I am in Lviv and asking if I can help. Everyone who is staying in the house is involved in helping. We decide to send both our daughters to the UK, to stay with some close friends of mine. The youngest is enrolled in school there, and they both find work at a local café. It is really difficult to be separated, especially for the girls who want to come back home, but I feel more confident when they are not here.

Early May The streets of Lviv are busy and the cafés are full of people. Many of them are from other regions in Ukraine that are still plagued by war. They don’t have jobs here, so they sit in the cafés and wait to go home. Lviv usually has a population of about 1 million people, but right now there is probably an extra 500,000 living here. It is not a “war city”, the Russian military is not targeting civilian areas here and we do not hide in shelters when the air sirens sound. We still have a family from Kharkiv staying with us, but all the Kyiv families have returned to their homes. The city is quite safe now, but our apartment is on the 15th floor and the air sirens still go off 3-4 times a day, so I feel safer here. Most of the volunteer work we do now is about helping animals that have been left behind in the Kyiv area. We work with Lviv volunteers who are getting help from Polish organizations to save some of the many pets that are now living on the streets in and around the capital area and the city of Chernigiv. Work has picked up a bit, and we are back on the VELUX network. We now have permission to sell the full product platform, previously it was only spare parts and replacement windows for houses that have been destroyed by the war. We have also started delivering pre-paid orders from before the invasion. Everyone is really eager to get back to work, because you get a bit crazy when you are not doing anything. We still have difficult times ahead, but it is hard to imagine it will get worse than what we have already gone through. Now we know that we will survive, and I cross my fingers that we can get back to normal life in the not-too-distant future.