Day 251. The last photo.

The night before the full scale invasion.

Hey everyone.

This evening I saw the post on LinkedIn by my friend asking what was the last photo in camera roll before the full scale invasion began on 24 February 2022 💔

Disregarding dozens of screenshots of all sorts of things, this was the last photo in my camera roll on 23 February 2022.

23 February

That evening, I was outside the russian embassy protesting - Ukrainians in London spent weeks doing that as the russians were building up troops around the border.

We were not just shouting about it from every rooftop. By that time, we were crying for help - and the world was largely ignoring us.

Over those days, I was going mad. I look exhausted in the photo because by that time I lost 8 kgs (almost 1/6 of my total weight) in the space of 3-4 weeks and had multiple nervous breakdowns, one after another. At some point, I had to take time off work for 3 days.

I barely remember what was happening to me over those 3 days but one of the days I spent lying in bed staring at the wall, unable to get up. That's how shit it felt to try to tell people what horror was about to happen - and to not be heard.

After the 24 February, I never got the "luxury" of spending a day like that again until taking a trip to the ICU in Poland.

24 February

I sat in my living room in the middle of the night, kinda frozen from the feeling of impending terror, when I got a DM from a friend in Kharkiv telling me she could hear explosions.

The call with my parents that I had to have after that, I wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy. I talked about it in one of my blog posts (click here to read it).

Some non-Ukrainian people like to make fun or belittle Ukrainians abroad, as if we are any less Ukrainian or somehow care less if we are not in Ukraine.

To those, I can only say: you're either incredibly insensitive or evil.

Having to say goodbye to your loved ones, possibly forever, not knowing if you'll ever hear their voices again - it remains one of the most horrible things I had to do in my life.

The thought of not being able to save them, or even bury their bodies if something happens to them, is fucking terrifying. Not understanding this is a privilege that Ukrainians no longer have.

For months after that, I was recording every single call I had with my parents so if something happened to them I'd be able to go back to our last conversations and listen to their voices.

I still do that sometimes.

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• P.S. This post was originally written in my Telegram channel “✨щоденник ясочки✨” - I started it after my Twitter account got suspended. You can subscribe to it here.

• All my other links can be found in my LinkTree, including my Buy Me A Coffee page which you can use if you’d like to support my work (always remember to support the Ukrainian Army first before anything else).

• In other news - currently spending time in Ukraine in a company of this very cute baby. Will share more tomorrow if I don’t forget :D