A large boom at 6 a.m. shook Yana and Sergii Lysenko from sleep in their Kyiv home. At first, Yana thought her husband was mistaken, it couldn’t be an attack, and told him to go back to sleep. Then they heard another blast.
“We started to listen to the news and we understood that the war had started, the Russian invasion is ongoing,” Sergii told CNN.
After hearing from friends that traffic had clogged roads out of the capital, the couple decided to remain at home with their three-year-old daughter, packing their bags just in case.
“We don’t know what to expect and what we will do. We are a bit in shock and trying to stay calm, not to show anything to our child,” Sergii added.
The mood was entirely different on Thursday morning, as people queued to purchase fuel for cars and drive west, away from the focus of the Russian assault. Exit ramps out Kyiv were snarled with traffic for hours after explosions rang out near the city’s main airport.
Grocery stores, pharmacies and shops were crammed with people trying to stock up on supplies. In one 24/7 supermarket, 20-year-old Oleksandr, who declined to give their surname, told CNN shelves had been emptied of pasta and bread. Long lines formed with people trying to withdraw cash from ATMs, many of which had run empty — a scene that was playing out in other parts of the country.
In the center of Mariupol, in the country’s south east, one woman told CNN she had been driving around the city all morning, trying 10 different ATMs while her children waited in the idling car for her outside. Many people in the port city on the Sea of Azov were frantic and confused, as rumors ran rampant that roads and checkpoints were closed, preventing them from leaving.
Across the country, Ukraine’s subway stations are doubling up as bomb shelters, as the assault continues and fears of strikes grow.
In Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, people were pouring underground while distant booms sounded intermittently overhead. Families with their children and pets in tow descended on one subway station after reports that Russian forces had rolled across the border and were heading toward the city in Ukraine’s northeast. People gathered there said they have vehicles but don’t want to risk leaving the city.
Back in Kyiv, the capital’s subway system was up and running. Some residents were camped out, sheltering in stations, but most were trying to find some way out of the city, with small suitcases and bags in tow.
A young student rushing out of the station at Kyiv’s Independence Square, the epicenter of the 2014 Maidan revolution and living monument to the so-called “Heavenly Hundred” protesters who died there, said that her parents, who live some 190 miles west, were coming to pick her up after she had failed to find any other transport options.
“I woke up at 5 a.m. and packed. I’ve been to the railway station and it’s closed. There are no buses,” Diana, 20, told CNN, adding: “I’m going home because I’m scared.”
But some people say they are carrying on as though it’s “business as usual.”
Alex Klymenok, a 27-year-old lawyer, woke up this morning to the sound of explosions and then resolutely put on his suit, traveling into his office to pick up a laptop and return home to work remotely.
“Well, it’s scary, of course, but we don’t need to panic. All they want us to do at this moment is to panic,” Klymenok told CNN, adding that he still did not believe Putin would launch a full-scale invasion, moving forces beyond the separatist-held regions of Donetsk and Luhansk, which Moscow recognized as independent on Monday.
“For now, it’s business as usual. But if they’re here in Kiev, I’m ready to, I am prepared to fight,” he said.
As the threat of invasion has loomed larger, residents across the country have prepared for the worst — packing emergency evacuation kits and spending their weekends training as reservists. As that threat was realized, Ukraine’s defense minister urged anyone thinking of taking up arms to enlist.
There were reports on Thursday morning of long lines outside one of Kharkiv’s hospitals, where people were desperate to help by donating blood. And in a quiet moment in one of the city’s main squares, as many on the border wondered what might come next, a small group huddled together in the freezing cold and knelt down on the pavement to pray.
Eliza Mackintosh wrote and reported from London. Ivana Kottasová reported from Kyiv. Brent Swails and Clarissa Ward in Kharkiv, Gul Tuyuz in Kyiv and Sebastian Shukla in Mariupol contributed to this report.