Devastating scenes following the Ukraine-Russia conflict. Video /
BNO News / New York Times / Ukraine in Action / NEXTA / Joe Truzman / Igor Girkin
Kiwi photojournalist Tom Mutch had been in Ukraine for a month when Russian president Vladmir Putin unleased his military might on Kyiv.
The 30-year-old, who grew up in Christchurch, diaries what it was like to have missiles exploding around him, as well as his escape from the capital with refugees who wonder if they will ever see their home again.
Thursday, February 24
The night before, everyone had expected the war to start, with the rumoured time being 4am. We decided to sit it out in a late-night bar, until 4am came and went with nothing happening and I decided to go to bed. Less than an hour later, my flatmate, Canadian journalist Neil Hauer, shook me awake and the first thing I heard were the sounds of missiles exploding in and around Kyiv. The war everyone was dreading had finally arrived.
Tom Mutch New Zealand photographer is currently in Ukraine as the war is unfolding. Photo / Tom Mutch
Later that day I went up to the viewpoint at the monument of St Volodymyr the Martyr on a hill perched between the old and new areas of Kyiv. Smoke was rising in the distance from an explosion in the city as well as from a gun battle over a crucial airport outside the city. There was something relieving about the situation. For weeks, we had agonised constantly about whether Putin would attack, and every night, someone well-informed would say "tonight is the night!" Now, we finally knew for sure.
A few days ago, I had been chatting to a girl on Tinder about meeting for a coffee. Now, she was texting me videos of huge gun battles happening right outside her apartment block. Overnight one of Europe's greatest capital cities had turned into the most dangerous place on earth. That evening, we heard the air raid siren ring out over Kyiv warning of incoming missiles.
It was the first time it had sounded since the Second World War. It was time to head to the bunkers.
Every reporter wants to find a story of love that endures through war, and with Platon and Varvara, I had found mine. He was Russian, she was Ukrainian, and they were cuddling under a blanket, sheltering in a 70m-deep metro station we and a few hundred civilians were using as a bomb shelter. It was obvious they were deeply in love- a real Romeo and Juliet story for the terrible war between their countries. It was the first thing that gave me hope that normal life can continue even under the worst circumstances. They were playfighting, swigging from a bottle of whiskey and sharing photos from their lives with me.
Mutch met Russian Platon and Ukranian Varvara. Photo / Tom Mutch
When we emerged in the early hours of the morning, Kyiv was completely deserted. This was a city of more than three million people, notorious for having one of the world's worst traffic congestion problems. Now the only souls on the street were military, police and the occasional armed militia members preparing for the defence of the city. It was as if everyone in London, or Paris, or Auckland simply disappeared from the street- I felt like we were in a post-apocalyptic film.
Saturday, February 26
The bunker that night felt like the end of the Battle of Helm's Deep. After everyone had entered, the guards shut huge steel blast doors over the entrance, and six of them trained their Kalashnikovs on the entrance waiting for any Russian troops who could make their way down.
We knew there was a large attack on Kyiv by Russian troops that evening, and everyone was constantly checking Instagram and Twitter to see whether Ukrainian soldiers were able to beat back the invaders.
Somehow, we still had perfect internet connections despite being deep underground.
All around me, families were comforting young children, people were passing out water and snacks.
We had heard that Kyiv was liable to be cut off from the rest of the country and decided to take a train to the relative safety of Western Ukraine. It was a terrible sight- thousands of Ukrainians and immigrants were packed on to their trains. One of my Ukrainian friends, Hanna, who was travelling with us looked out and said she was wondering if she would ever see her home again.
It was the same question many people were asking, and we still do not know the answer. Some would prefer to be homeless and stateless than living under Russian domination.
An armed man stands by the remains of a Russian military vehicle in Bucha, close to the capital Kyiv. Photo / AP
Others would prefer to be dead, and are willing to fight.
When we arrived in Khmelnytskyi, a small city halfway between Kyiv and the Polish border, we could finally relax and unpack our thoughts. Three of us were crammed into a hotel room, but the shower I had that day felt better than any I had in my life. Three days' worth of grime and sweat washed off me. I slept for four hours, which is more than I had for the previous three nights combined.
Monday, February 28
That morning we arrived in Lviv, the largest city in the west and a bastion of Ukrainian nationalism. So far, apart from the occasional airstrike in the region, the city had been untouched by the war. It was the only safe haven in a country where most major cities were under continuous bombardment from Russian artillery.
It was only on this day that I really felt the stress of the war begin to weigh on me. For the first days, we were all living on adrenalin. But this day felt different, as our bodies finally processed what we were going through. I felt weird aches throughout my muscles, and I woke up in a hot sweat despite it being winter in a bitterly cold country. I would feel extremely energetic and then completely exhausted within the same hour.
This was the hardest day so far. We took a trip to the Polish border, to see the refugees who had been lining up on the border, desperate to get to the safety of other European countries. It was a terrible sight. Some people, especially non-white immigrants, had been waiting for days in freezing conditions, with almost nothing in the way of blankets. Some were burning their clothes just to keep warm. Aid organisations had mostly evacuated the area. Jay Schnell, a 28-year-old Canadian vlogger, had been running a bootleg humanitarian aid mission with a few volunteers and a PayPal account, raising money from donations he solicited through Instagram.
Tom Mutch (right) New Zealand photographer in Mariupol, Ukraine. Photo / Tom Mutch
In all this misery, there are always some signs of loyalty and hope. I met Chadia, a 24-year-old from Rwanda when she asked me for a blanket. She had been freezing and sleeping in the snow for three days now. But when a few of the border guards asked to bring all the women and children in the line through, she refused to go. She said that she was going to stay with her friend Sirack, an Eritrean refugee, because they had promised they would stay with each other through thick and thin. When I realised what she was willing to sacrifice, the promise of safety and shelter, to keep the promise she had made I began to cry for the first time since the war started.
I drove back from the border to Lviv with a heavy heart, which didn't lift until she texted me at 3am the next morning - "we made it to Poland!" and I finally allowed myself to smile again.
Friday, March 4
Today I said goodbye to Hanna at the train station, as she was due to leave for Poland. I told her I'd meet her again wherever she decided to travel. She told me, "no, we will meet again in Kyiv. In a free Ukraine."
