For the past three years, I’ve spent many nights sleeping in the bathroom. That puts at least two walls between me and the street—thick walls, made of concrete and brick. I naively hope they’ll protect me from shrapnel if there’s an explosion nearby.

I don’t even think about what would happen if a drone flew straight into my window. It’s a sort of fatalism. In case of a direct hit, there are too many factors you can’t predict. And if you can’t predict something—you try not to think about it.

I barely remember the time before the war anymore. And I’m not talking about 2022—I mean 2014. The war has been close one way or another all this time: funerals, hospitals, friends, fundraisers, work on the frontline, news from the occupied territories. Only a completely unempathetic fool can claim the war is far away and doesn’t really concern them.

In case you missed it: the war in Ukraine started in 2014, when Russians occupied Crimea. Sometimes I hear nonsense like “Well, that was a long time ago, what’s the difference now.” Huge difference. Occupied territories remain occupied even decades later.

Since 2022, Russia stopped pretending altogether and decided to wage full-scale war. So here you are, living in the capital of a country whose right to exist Russians completely reject, whose entire people’s existence they deny.

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Two beds, every night

Every night I prepare two beds: a regular one in the bedroom, and one in the bathroom, made of several sleeping pads and sleeping bags. Before going to sleep, you check the air raid map and make a decision.

Will you start the night in a normal bed, or is it better to go straight to the bathroom so you don’t end up running around the apartment in the middle of the night? You also bring your go-bag into the bathroom—tech, documents, first aid kit, flashlight. So that if something happens, everything is within reach.

Sometimes, if you don’t forget, you also bring a bottle of water. Since I’m tall, sleeping in the bathroom isn’t very comfortable. Despite its size, I still don’t fit on the floor.

Reading the patterns

You learn to predict the attacks. If Russians attacked neighboring regions—Poltava or Cherkasy—for several nights in a row, that means you should expect an attack on Kyiv soon.

It’s easy to tell when drones are headed for Kyiv. If they are, they arrive early, while it’s still light out, and can come not just from Sumy Oblast, but also from Chernihiv. If you see that happening, you head straight to sleep in the bathroom.

If drones are only flying from Sumy Oblast, there’s a chance they’ll target somewhere else that night, and you might be able to sleep in a normal bed without interruption. But not always—there are different scenarios.

Just before dawn, you might jolt awake because ballistic missiles are flying toward Kyiv. Sometimes the air raid alert goes off at the same moment as the explosions, or just a minute or two before the strike. There’s no time to get to a shelter. Only the bathroom.

What sleep deprivation actually looks like

If you spend the whole night in the bathroom—it’s hard to call that real sleep. Your joints ache, no matter how many sleeping pads you lay down. The floor is never going to feel like a bed. And because of that damn joint pain, you can’t fall asleep.

But that’s not even the worst part. Aching joints are the least of your worries. When your windows rattle and your doors slam because something gets shot down nearby—it’s pretty hard to sleep. And if it’s a ballistic missile—the whole city hears it.

Or you might wake up to a horrible buzzing right over your building. That’s a modified Iranian Shahed drone, which of course no one ever officially supplied to the Russians. Trust me—that’s not a sound you ever want to hear.

On nights like last night, the number of these drones can reach the hundreds. Literally. The monitoring channels even stop reporting which districts they’re flying over and how many—because there’s just no point. This shit is everywhere.

Then the reports start coming in about impacts. Every time, they’re somewhere near your friends or family. Because I have friends all over Kyiv. So you start messaging them, asking if they’re okay. You get nervous when they take too long to reply.

Morning after

By morning, the air raid alert is over. All in all, you got maybe three hours of sleep. That’s how it’s been for three years.

When you read articles about how sleep deprivation is a threat in wars between countries on another continent—you want to laugh hysterically. Because I know what that is. And I want to tell you that you get used to it too.

When you go outside in the morning—you see the coffee shop near your home is already open. The supermarket too. You get your coffee, buy cigarettes, and head to the metro.

You walk there angry and sleep-deprived. But alive. And not injured. And as awful as it sounds—you’re grateful for that. Because if you made it through the night, then today you can do something important. Someone else wasn’t as lucky.

People sit in cafés, eat croissants, drink their coffee. But before that, they might have spent the night in a metro station, an underground parking garage, or a basement. Or in the bathroom. This is now the fourth year. The war itself—the twelfth.

What peace actually means

I’m not even going to try describing how people live in Kharkiv, Sumy, or Odesa. And especially Kherson, where Russians literally hunt people using FPV drones. That’s a whole different level of terror and trying to survive within it.

Russia’s “drone safari” in Kherson

The UN confirmed what I saw in Kherson: Russia is hunting civilians for sport

That’s why any news about Putin’s so-called “desire for peace” makes us furious. We hear that damn “desire for peace” several times a week. And Kharkiv or Sumy—every single day. Russia has no desire for peace. So there won’t be any.

Putin only understands strength. That fact is as simple as two times two. But some people—some politicians—pretend things aren’t so black and white. Countries that once gave your country security guarantees can’t even close the skies over you.

They not only refuse to give you air defense missiles for free—they refuse to sell them. Ukrainians are very angry about that. Incredibly. Because they have every right to be. We’ve lived three years under full-scale war and nightly terror.

Learning how to live in full-scale war isn’t a skill anyone should ever have to acquire. I hope you never have to experience anything like this.

But here we go again:

Stas Kozliuk

Stas Kozliuk is a Ukrainian reporter and photojournalist.

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