“I went to sleep in 2022, and woke up in 1941”, designer and former model Victoria Zavhorodnia, 30, tells me from a friend’s home in deserted Kyiv. It’s been four days since Putin’s forces invaded Ukraine and the capital city is almost entirely empty, aside from Ukrainian Army and volunteer militias who patrol the streets looking for Russian infiltrators.
“I felt so depressed, weak and miserable,” says Zavhorodnia. “We never could believe that Russia will invade us. It was absolute panic, I texted all my friends and family, and no one had any idea what to do. We were being bombed by our neighbour, where we all have friends, relatives, even children. It is killing me from the inside - it broke my heart.”
