We take for granted how easy international travel usually is.
But then you think, 'Oh my god, there are no flights anymore.' You can’t fly. I wanted to take the first flight to Kyiv. The bomb had hit it.'Īs the programme came to a close and I left the BBC building, I finally had a moment to think about what I was going to do next. I saw my balcony and the window of the room I was brought up in, which I know now is my mum’s bedroom. It showed some flats that looked completely destroyed. You know, when you don’t see it, you still have that faith inside you that maybe, just maybe… But the video, as we watched live, panned across the back. My apartment can’t be seen from the front and I’d still had the hope that my home had not been affected. The pictures which I had seen before were of the front of the building. And as everyone has now witnessed, it was a very emotional moment for me. I didn’t know what the footage would be, as there wasn’t any further information, so I commenced the introduction, describing what I was seeing, where it was and as I am talking, the camera turns to the building where I used to live, and where my mum still lives. Then, at some point the director in my earpiece said that they had live footage from Kyiv and could I prepare to introduce it. And they were very understanding and exerted no undue pressure. When I arrived at the studio I explained what had happened and that I didn’t know if I had the emotional capacity to go on air but that I would try. I agonised about calling my mum, but the taxi was waiting to take me to the new broadcasting house. And that morning, the morning that everyone has now seen the footage of, I had been invited by BBC World News presenter Karin Giannone to be what's called a 'presenter’s friend' for the early news bulletins, which air from 6-8am.
Since the invasion began, I’ve regularly been deployed outside of my usual job parameters to do coverage for our English speaking colleagues. I moved to London from Ukraine four years ago, originally to be a producer for BBC News Russian, but after a while I was offered a producer and presenter role on the BBC News Ukraine team. I work as a broadcast journalist for BBC News Ukraine, which is part of BBC World Service. ‘Mum, are you alright?’ I saw that my message was not delivered. But also, I had deep inside me the horrible fear that if I called her and, you know… She has issues with her blood pressure and I thought maybe she was safe and had just fallen asleep and my call would startle her. I didn’t know that she was definitely not in the building, but it was 3am in London, 5am in Kyiv and my mum is ageing. I had asked her the evening before not to spend the night at our family home because we don’t have a basement there.
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