Olena Borysenko wants her family to be safe, and wants to show people care as she takes part in the protest. Photo / Paul Taylor
Hawke's Bay-based Olena Borysenko's 10-year-old nephew sleeps to a night-time chorus of air-raid alarms, explosions, and gunshots.
Borysenko was part of a 30-strong crowd in Napier on Sunday protesting against the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Borysenko's nephew, Nicholas, lives in Boryspil, Ukraine.
Boryspil is in the Kyiv Oblast region in northern Ukraine, and was attacked by Russian missiles last week, and while one missile was destroyed, another hit the technical premises of the KBP Airport.
Several people were reportedly wounded in the attack. Air-raid alarms went off across the region and it is now preparing for the evacuation of civilians from "hotspots".
Borysenko, who has been living in Hawke's Bay since 2020, told Hawke's Bay Today she feared for the safety of her family, every day.
"My whole family lives in Boryspil, and it is very, very hard being so far away from them. I don't know if I will ever see them again, and I might not see them alive."
The 31-year-old said the only sounds her family heard were explosions, shootings and air-raid alarms.
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"I talk to them every day, they live in inner city, inner town. Right now they are sleeping on the ground floor because it is safer to exit in case of an explosion," she said.
"My 10-year-old nephew is very brave, and he's trying to look after my sister but he has nightmares if he sleeps. They are not really sleeping.
"It's always loud because of the explosions, someone has to stay on the alert."
She said there was a shortage of food, but the biggest issue facing her family was the fact her family could not leave.
"My grandmother is 90-plus so she is not capable of travel, my parents won't leave my grandmother.
"Right now, only my sister is hoping to escape Boryspil shortly when it's safe, but it's never safe enough."
She said she was part of the protest because "we have to have peace, we care".
"We need to raise our voices to be heard, and to stop this war, and it's great to see support."
Fellow protester Barry Lynch, a shop owner in Napier, said he'd never been to Ukraine and had no connection to it, but "naked aggression is naked aggression".
"It's the fruit of an old hatred, but morally I know where I stand."
He said his shop, Decorum Vintage, would be collecting funds for those affected by the invasion.
Protest organiser Tanya Skyrme grew up in Ukraine and spent most of her life in the country before moving to Hawke's Bay 12 years ago.
Her parents and two sisters still live in the city of Ivano-Frankivsk in the west of Ukraine after the Russian invasion on February 24.
"My parents don't even want to leave Ukraine because they can't imagine ever leaving it, so I have a hard time convincing them to run to Poland."
A series of air-raid alerts last Wednesday morning urged residents of Kyiv to go to bomb shelters amid fears of incoming missiles. Explosions were later heard.
Regional administration head Oleksiy Kuleba said the crisis for civilians is deepening in and around Kyiv, with the situation particularly dire in the suburbs.
"Russia is artificially creating a humanitarian crisis in the Kyiv region, frustrating the evacuation of people and continuing shelling and bombing small communities," he said.
Russia's invasion of Ukraine has caused one of the fastest-growing refugee crises in decades, with more than 2 million people fleeing the country in just two weeks.
Thousands of people are thought to have been killed, both civilians and soldiers, in the two weeks of fighting since Russian President Vladimir Putin's forces invaded.
Communications released after minister apologised for his behaviour last month.