It’s shortly before noon in Odesa on March 3. Sirens go off and an alert beeps on a smartphone app: “Attention! Air raid alert. Proceed to the nearest shelter. Don’t be careless, your overconfidence is your weakness,” it declares, using the voice of Star Wars actor Mark Hamill in a pre-recorded message that warns residents of air raids.
The sirens and Hamill’s voice spur one into action but the locals don't appear to be moved. This may be a sign of how these have become part of their daily lives.
In coffee shops they continue sipping coffee while young children and their parents play in the parks and buses continue to pick up and drop off passengers at stops dotting the city. It would appear, as with all things, life goes on and people get on with it.
It’s been two years since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Ukraine is fighting back while rebuilding at the same time.
Earlier on Sunday morning a group of South African journalists in Ukraine got first hand experience of the situation, visiting a shelter that houses people from occupied regions. The underground structure also operates as a bomb shelter.
Tetiana Buduliova, a retired accountant from Toretsk, runs the shelter with three tiny bedrooms, a kitchen, a bathroom and a toilet.
“These are people from Kherson city and the Donbas region,” she said about the occupants.
The shelter was accommodating 18 people at the time of TimesLIVE Premium's visit — 12 men and six women.
While there were no children on Sunday, Buduliova said there had been some over the past two years who lived there and attended online schooling.
Speaking through an interpreter, she also explained that among the conditions set by NGOs who support her shelter and similar shelters, the refugees should not be charged for accommodation but pay 1 UAH (50c) a day for water, gas and electricity.
The shelter, which has been operating from April 2022, doesn’t get help from the Ukrainian government because “we are refugees”, said Buduliova.
Those who are seeking accommodation generally stay between six months and a year depending on how fast they can find a job before they move into their own accommodation.
Asked about the war, she said: “We don’t need it. We don’t need it.
“During Soviet time my family relocated from Kherson to the Donbas region, that’s why I lived in Donbas and don’t want to go to Russia. I want to be in Ukraine with Ukraine.”
On the other side of Odesa, still in the city centre, journalists were met by Yevhenii Gevrik, head of renovation company BK Budzhak.
Gevrik was standing outside a two-storey building hit by a missile in July last year. The missile launched from Russia’s side was intercepted by Ukraine’s air defence system over the residential building and it disintegrated on the building, with a wall falling into the neighbouring property, destroying its roof. Shortly after the family who lived in the building moved to Austria, said Gevrik.
The two families who lived in the second building are accommodated at a hostel where a private business is paying for their expenses with the help of the city.
Gevrik was wounded in the leg and developed heart problems while fighting on the front lines.
“I fought in defence of the Mykolaiv region and I was hospitalised for nine months,” he said.
The 45-year-old started repairing old buildings in 2019 and has repaired about 20 seriously damaged properties since the war started in February 2022. He has also worked on “small damages” such as broken glass which often happens in properties surrounding the rocket or drone-hit buildings.
“A shell can destroy more than one house. Three or four private houses get destroyed by one missile,” he said,
Gevrik employed 28 people before the war but now his staff is 16.
Together with some of his employees, he went to the frontline at the beginning of the war to defend their country. Six died in the conflict.
“I don’t regret it. I am proud I went,” he said.
“And if called up I would go back,” he added.
Like a few others TimesLIVE Premium spoke to, Gevrik felt duty-bound to take up arms and defend his country so much so that when the Ukraine army gave him an assault rifle he bought ammunition, metal and a helmet with his own money.
Now that he’s back at home some of that ammunition remains in his wardrobe, he said.
While no-one knows when the war and suffering will end, the group of South African journalists cowering in a bomb shelter couldn’t help but breathe a sigh of relief when Hamill’s voice announced via the air alert app about 30 minutes later that it was safe to come out.
“The air alert is over. May the force be with you.”
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