Story: It’s the evening in Kiev.
Like clockwork, 27-year-old Daria Slavytska packs his luggage.
In it – yoga mats, blankets and food.
She enters the subway in Ukrainian cities with her two-year-old son Emil several times a week.
Not to catch a train, but hours of sleep – safely below the ground – while the air raids above the sirens cried.
::daria slavytska, a resident of Kyiv
“We used to be once a month, once a month, and that was once six months ago. Now we’re here twice or three times a week.”
Over the past two months, Russia has released drone and missile strikes on Kiev as part of its summer offensive.
The attack exhausted the city’s 3.7 million residents, such as Slaveteska, and was on the brink.
She remembered when Emil heard the sirens.
The airstrike alarm on her cell phone would tremble the little boy – crying: “The corridor, the corridor, mom, I’m scared.” The doctor advised her to turn them off.
Back in April, a strike destroyed residential buildings a few kilometers from the Slavytska apartment block.
The threat of losing a home suddenly became more real, she said.
Now, she brings her identity documents underground.
And bought a lighter stroller to make her dash easier to enter the station.
“I don’t remember the exact number. If we remember everything that died a long time ago – so we just sat here, we sat here. At 5 a.m., we went home and slept for a while, it’s OK. Now it’s OK, unfortunately, every attack brings casualties.”
During their nights on the subway, Slavytska crouched on her pink yoga mat with a column of curls lined to the track.
But given how often they sleep underground, she set out to buy a more comfortable mattress.
A Danish retailer told Reuters there was an increase in demand for inflatable mattresses, camp beds and sleep mats.
:: Ruslan, Jysk Sales Manager
“In the last three weeks of June, sales in Kiev grew the most. Demand increased by 20-25%.
Mass bombings hit the city five times in June after evacuating one of Kiev’s 46 underground stations.
The subway system recorded 165,000 nights of visits for the month.
Its news service told Reuters that visits in May were more than double that in May.
Kiev City Military Government told Reuters that more and more people are heading to shelters due to the “scale and lethality” of the attack.
It said the strike killed 78 residents and injured more than 400 people in the first half of this year – sleeping in shelters is now the norm.
But some are taking more extreme measures – such as Kateryna Storozhuk.
Storozhuk has no shelter within three kilometers of the house and has invested more than $2,000 in the “capsule of life.”
This is a reinforced steel box that can withstand falling concrete slabs.
She slept in it every night.
:: Kateryna Storozhuk, Kyiv resident
“The capsules protect me from debris and fear. This allows me to sleep in a safe compartment.”
Storozhuk knows that the capsules cannot withstand direct missile hits.
But the lack of sleep in the attack was causing her great stress.
“I became anxious and fearful, and at some point I could no longer control it. I just became insomnia due to fear.”
