Lidia Zaika heard the Russians coming well before they arrived in her town.
With tears in her eyes, the great-grandmother, who lives alone, recalled the deafening sound of bombs raining down around her.
"The most horrible things were the rockets and the shells," she said.
"There were such huge explosions and flames.
"I was praying, asking God to protect me. It was a nightmare."
She took shelter in her cellar, where she was already storing onions, potatoes and jars of preserved food.
"At least if I died, I'd die with a full stomach," she said.
After weeks of relentless shelling, and with communications and power cut off, she started losing hope.
"I realised nobody was going to help me," she said.
During breaks in the shelling, she filled buckets of water and started putting out fires which had started around the property.
She never went outside her gates.
When she finally did emerge one month later, she was horrified by what she found.
The last woman standing
Almost every house around Ms Zaika's home was destroyed or badly damaged.
"After a month, I came out of hiding. I saw the houses around me were bombed and burnt. The fire was spreading from one house to another," she told the ABC.
"And then I realised I was all alone."
Unbeknownst to her, almost everyone in the town had already fled, so Ms Zaika was forced to survey the damage on her own.
Huge craters in the streets and in nearby fields showed the power of the shells that Russian soldiers fired as they advanced from Belarus towards Kyiv.
The houses that took direct hits were obliterated.
On the streets of Moschun, there are still signs of the fierce fighting that occurred when Ukrainian forces pushed the Russian army back.
There are human remains by the side of the road.
It is not clear whether they belong to Russian or Ukrainian soldiers, or whether they were civilians.
Eventually, Ukrainian troops gained control of the town.
"They brought me some food. Plus, it was a chance to speak to someone. Before that, I felt like I'd been deserted," Ms Zaika said.
Friends in a nearby village have since contacted Ms Zaika's family to tell them she's OK.
Even though her home is surrounded by blackened wreckage, she doesn't want to leave.
"Where should I go?" she asked.
"I've been living here my whole life. How could I leave it behind?"
'We must rebuild'
In areas surrounding Kyiv that were devastated by Russian attacks, a major rebuilding effort is underway.
Staff at Irpin's Polyclinic hospital are already replacing the shattered windows and crumbling walls that were blown out by Russian shelling.
Shortly after the invasion began on February 24, the hospital started treating soldiers who had been wounded on the front line.
But once the city itself came under attack, civilians started being brought in with critical injuries.
"Some were missing limbs, others had shrapnel wounds to their heads," Andriy Levkivski, the head of the hospital, said.
"Some of the patients couldn't be saved."
Out the back of the hospital, graves have been dug for some of the patients who didn't make it.
They are yet to be exhumed.
Despite experiencing the horrors of war, Mr Levkivski and his staff have worked around the clock to rebuild the hospital.
Electricity and water have now been restored and the hospital's depleted stocks have been replenished with donated medical supplies.
"This clinic is needed because people are returning to the city," he said.
"This is our city. It will be rebuilt.
"We shouldn't have to wait until the end of the war."
A confronting clean-up
In an effort to make places like Irpin liveable again, authorities have built a new river crossing in Kyiv, replacing the bridge that Ukrainian forces blew up to stop Russia's advance.
They've also started clearing hundreds of destroyed vehicles from the streets, creating eerie collections of twisted metal.
Many of the cars were shelled or peppered with bullets and other shrapnel when Russia attacked.
Some even had signs on the windows, warning soldiers there were children inside.
The ABC found Irpin resident Sirgiy Urash gazing up at his destroyed hatchback, which was stacked high on a pile of other mangled vehicles.
"It was destroyed by a shell or a mine," he said, looking up at the wreckage.
"My car was actually hit twice."
The first strike badly damaged the wheels but Mr Urash still used it to help evacuate an elderly neighbour.
The next shell was far more destructive, tearing the car apart.
Fortunately, neither he nor his family were inside the vehicle at the time.
His wife and daughter are still in western Ukraine after escaping to safety, but Mr Urash returned to see what he could salvage.
"I came back to see what our building looks like and to clean up," he said.
Now that some electricity and water services have been reconnected, he expects to see more Irpin residents doing the same.
"After the victory, Irpin will get back to life as it was before," he said.
"Things are already improving."
