Moment Ukraine refugee now in Darlington realised she must flee

The 22-year-old, who has found a safe haven in Darlington, had just graduated and had taken up her dream job as a reporter when Russia invaded Ukraine.

In a series of special reports for The Northern Echo, Nadiia will share the heartbreaking journey that transformed her in just weeks from a bright young graduate with the world at her feet into a refugee living in the shadow of war.

Today, she reveals for the first time the terror and devastation she felt as she prepared to leave everything she knew behind to flee her occupied home town, Melitipol. 

Read more: A shoplifter's story of childhood drugs and dealing

“I was not among those Ukrainians who had been panicking since autumn and warning everyone about the impending catastrophe," she begins.

“I’m a journalist, I’m selective in where I get my information from – I didn’t read clickbait and limited myself to a summary of expert opinions from trusted sources.

“But they were wrong about the war, we were all wrong."

Nadiia Honcharenko, 22. Picture: Sarah Caldecott/The Northern Echo

It was two days before the conflict broke out on February 24 that Nadiaa realised the threat was real.

“Air traffic around Ukraine stopped – that could only have indicated the closure of airspace in the event of a Russian invasion.

“That evening, I told my family that we needed to move out of our city, Melitipol.

“Our apartment, where we lived for almost all of our lives, is right next to a military airfield.

“I knew it would be one of Russia’s first targets.

“I didn’t have a backpack of essentials ready for an emergency, I wasn’t prepared.”

But Nadiia's family struggled to take the looming catastrophe seriously at first.

They said she was being nervous and anxious as she became hypervigilant, spending her nights listening for signs of war, scrolling news sites obsessively.

“So we did not leave and I did not sleep for several nights.

“But eventually I gave in, I took a sleeping tablet and fell sound asleep.

“I slept through the first explosions as war began.”

She was roused by her sister, who’d crawled into her bed, frightened and convinced she could hear explosions.

“I took her seriously only after the third explosion, which was much louder.

“Scrolling through my news feed I read the scariest headlines of my life.

“There was no more doubt, we were being bombed.

“We woke our parents up with just four words – the war has begun.”

Cruise missiles flew over her father’s head as he ran for the family car, columns of smoke appearing on the airfield – the early signs of a city changed forever.

“My mother and sister were in a panic but I was still in a stupor from the shock and sleeping tablet.

“As we’d had no plan to leave, we fled to our grandmother’s one-room apartment as it had an underground basement we could shelter in.

“On our way, as we fled with hundreds of others, we read that martial law had been declared in Ukraine.”

The family quickly converted the apartment’s small basement into a bomb shelter, sealing windows with tape and stocking up on torches and as much food and water as possible.

Friends with nowhere else to go joined them and soon, the tiny apartment was crowded with 11 people, including Nadiia’s disabled grandfather, seven adults, three young children and two cats.

“When we arrived, we did not know that by that evening, our city would be occupied by Russians and that we’d end up staying in that apartment for a month, our exit from the city blocked.”

Nadiia is writing from her adopted home in Darlington, where she has been living with Durham University professor Nicole Westmarland since May.

“Since arriving, many people have asked me about my country, the war, my personal history,” she says.

“It is only in the moments where I can share my story and tell the world about the war that I feel useful.”

Read next:

• The Seige of Sarajevo: 'The blood of children on snow'
• 'They wore fingers as necklaces' - the story of the Srebrenica massacre
• From Syria to Darlington, a teen refugee's story