A 21-year-old woman living through a “terrifying” nightmare in Ukraine says she “just wants to cry” as she endures the sounds of bombings and shootings through the night.
Daniella Nykytyuk, from Adelaide, Australia , is living 350 kilometres west of Ukraine ’s capital Kyiv. A battle is underway just outside of the city as locals try to prevent Russian troops from taking control.
Russia ’s military has said it has blocked the city from the west and captured the strategic Hostomel airport - having already occupied several northern districts.
"It is really terrifying, we are not sure what's going to happen in the next hour or even minute," Ms Nykytyuk said.
"It's usually after 12am that we've been hearing loud bombing noises, shootings, yesterday during the day we saw planes flying above us."
It was just two weeks ago that Ms Nykytyuk got engaged to her fiancé Sasha.
He has now volunteered to fight - which his fiancé said makes her “so, so proud” but also makes her “want to cry”.
The situation was worlds away from that which she grew up in - the Adelaide suburbs of Woodville West and Findon, where she went to school.
"Now we're thinking about how to survive, we can't take any money out, we can't buy any food products, there's no petrol left, no money left at the ATMs," she said.
Ms Nykytyuk’s reports of chaos amid the invasion of Russian troops come amid local reports of guns being handed out to Ukrainian civilians and the Defence Ministry urging citizens to make Molotov cocktails to protect themselves.
Metro stations are being used as bomb shelters and are packed with families with deafening air raids ongoing.
Refugees have described able-bodied men attempting to flee into neighbouring Poland being plucked from crowds to join the fight against Putin's onslaught.
Fierce fighting has already broken out across the country, including in the Donetsk and Luhansk border regions - both declared People's Republics hours before war commenced.
Another Australian, Marko Kvasniuk, is worried about his fiancé - Tetiana - who is currently in western Ukraine.
Mr Kvasniuk said he was trying to assist her in getting over the border into Hungary, Poland or Slovakia.
“She has decided to leave but the path out isn't clear,” he continued.
"After she's out in another country then we can worry about everything else but that's kind of the priority now.”
