Day 32
March 27th
Knowing what is important in life
I’ve always loved my country, but I’ve never been more proud of my people than over these 32 days. This is one of the many reasons why.
Source:
Nataliya Melnyk on Facebook
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Day 31, from Mordor with brotherly love
March 26th
Remember the drama theater in Mariupol where hundreds of civilians found shelter that you-know-who bombed some time ago? 300 are confirmed dead.
They are forcefully deporting civilians from temporarily occupied territories to russia and putting them in filtration camps.
They are ransacking homes and stealing whatever they can carry.
Thousands of Ukrainians are desperately trying to find their relatives or someone who has any kind of information about them. I’m afraid to even think about how many of them will not get the good news they are hoping for.
It’s getting harder to find the words to describe this scale of evil and destruction…
Source:
Nataliya Melnyk on Facebook
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Day 30 of the 8-year-long war that should have never started
March 25th
“Sonny, your Dad and I are still alive. We are so worried about you. We really hope you are safe. We are still in the basement. It is getting worse each day, we are too scared to even go the bathroom on the first floor. We are running out of water, but everyone is too afraid to go get it. Dad is hungry all the time. We have a lot of potatoes, but we can’t cook it. I am happy you are not with us right now, I really want you to live and be happy. We love you very much, you are our biggest treasure.” Messages from a mother to her son from Mariupol which is almost completely destroyed by russian shelling.
“You are my heart. You are my soul. You were and will be. I love you endlessly and I am so proud of you. I curse these fascists for you, my love, for our unborn children, for the stolen life, yours and mine. I am a widow at 25. My life was stolen by inhumans. My life was stolen by russia.”
Source:
Nataliya Melnyk on Facebook
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Day 29
March 24th
4 weeks ago our peaceful lives ended. This war has already taken so much from us, from some more than others, and a lot of it we will never be able to get back. At the same time I have never felt this much support and seen more desire to help those less fortunate than over these dreadful 29 days. New requests keep popping up, but so do opportunities to have them covered. A huge thank you to everyone for bringing the return home we are dreaming of closer!
Atlas Network,
Tom G. Palmer,
Małgorzata Bogusz,
Marcin Nowacki,
Tara Airhart,
Jonathan Airhart,
Alan Kent,
Oksana Kvitka,
Нова Енергія New Energy,
Maksym Karpash,
Iryna Darvai, and so many others!
Source:
Nataliya Melnyk on Facebook
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Day 28
March 23rd
To all those who “don’t know the truth about what is happening in Ukraine”, let me help you out. This is Mariupol, a Russian-speaking city in the Donetsk region.
In 2021 it was named in the top-10 Ukrainian cities to live in, ahead of Kyiv, Lviv and Kharkiv.
In 2022 it is a city to die in – a place of mass graves, destruction and suffering.
This is what russia does to you when you don’t abide by its chauvinism. And it will keep doing this unless it is taught, once and for all, to take no for an answer.
Source:
Nataliya Melnyk on Facebook
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Day 27 of life in between:
March 22nd
– Air raid alerts during which everything shuts down. If you want to go grocery shopping, mail urgent supplies, hold an event for kids to distract them from the war or simply get to work by means of public transportation, be ready for none of that happening because the siren can go off anytime.
– Actual bombings. You never know where the next one will fall.
– Supply runs. Always trying to move things as fast as possible so that they can save people’s lives right away.
– Requests that are flooding in, Mariupol, Melitopol and Zaporizhzhia are pending, others are getting covered slowly.
– Multiple messengers with people from all over the world working hard to make sure we survive this.
– The craziest questions/suggestions/asks, some of which you actually get done somehow.
– Volunteering and doing your actual job. To make some money that can be put back into volunteering.
– Reports of more relatives/friends/loved ones of the people you know dying or missing.
– Underground/closed spaces and open air. So far open air is losing.
PS: Wish us good luck with three evacuations from one of the hotspots!

Source:
Nataliya Melnyk on Facebook
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Day 26. XXI century, year 2022, middle of Europe
March 21st
this is what real treasure looks like nowadays… 14 people from various countries were involved in getting these to me, and that’s only those whose participation I am aware of!
Source:
Nataliya Melnyk on Facebook
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The devastatingly tragic irony of it all: This man who survived Buchenwald and 3 (!!!!!) other Nazi concentration camps was killed at the age of 96 in his own home in Kharkiv by russian soldiers “denazifying” Ukraine… His name was Borys Romanchenko.
Source:
Nataliya Melnyk on Facebook
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Kyiv Update