Tomorrow marks three weeks weeks since full-scale war came to the country I called home for almost a decade. I do not need to tune into the news or read reports, I am watching Ukraine be destroyed in real time.
That comes by virtue of the majority of my friends on social media being Ukrainian.
Friends, former colleagues and mere acquaintances in every corner of Europe’s largest country are reeling in the face of a full-scale war they did not want, from a neighbour they did not expect to attempt to wipe them off the map — Russia.
Those that can, document their experiences on social media but a large number of the people I know have fallen silent.
I can only wonder at their fate.
The threat had been looming for eight years.
In 2014, as the fires and the bodies that marked what became known as the Revolution of Dignity that marked the ouster of corrupt and Russia-leaning President Viktor Yanukovych were still warm, Vladimir Putin’s Russia seized Crimea.
Vast swathes of the eastern Ukrainian steppes known as Donbas were to become a war zone as Russian-backed separatists took over.
That war was ongoing, with fire being exchanged and lives being lost daily.
Three weeks ago, Putin upped the stakes — war is now everywhere.
As I write this the capital, Kyiv, which was my home, is a city on the brink as Russian forces close in and missile attacks on the outskirts of the city intensify.
One person died and six more were injured when an apartment building in the city’s Obolon district was hit on Monday.
One friend and former colleague from Kyiv, Elena Kozmenko, who worked for a travel company, spoke from the safety of Western Germany having arrived there late on Saturday after four days of travel to escape the coming storm.
"We stayed in Kyiv for 12 days, but it became unbearable and also my brother told us to escape all the time.
"So it took us four days [with] my parents, two cats and me to get to my friend in Western Germany."
"My brother is in Ukraine and I am desperate about it of course, so are my uncles and their families."
Kyiv stands ... for now, but other cities I have visited, often more than once, are being reduced to rubble.
Bucha and Irpin, northwest and immediately beyond the boundaries of Kyiv have borne the brunt of the Russian advance on the capital.
The latter, a modern and growing city popular with young families, was home to many former colleagues, it was a place I visited often, and since the outset of the war has been reduced to rubble with bodies still to be cleared from the streets yesterday.
I know the whereabouts of only about half the people I knew who lived there.
The same can be said for Kharkiv. Ukraine’s second biggest city, situated in the northeast, has been under sustained attack since the beginning of the conflict.
As well as the city’s eclectic mix of art nouveau, art deco, constructivist and Stalinist architecture being destroyed in scenes reminiscent of World War 2, a hallmark of this war seems to be deliberately targeting civilian apartment blocks.
Contact with anyone still there is nigh on impossible.
The human toll of this war is becoming unimaginable.
Nowhere is that more acute than in Mariupol. Dmytro Kuleba, Ukraine’s foreign minister, described the situation there as "now the worst humanitarian catastrophe on the planet".
The city in southeastern Ukraine on the coast of the Sea of Azov is encircled by Kremlin forces, more than 2500 people have been killed, their bodies deposited in mass graves or left still trapped in rubble.
Water, electricity and heat are cut off, with sub-zero temperatures and food running desperately low.
Attempts to evacuate via humanitarian corridors stalled for days until a convoy of cars was arranged on Monday.
That day, a convoy of humanitarian aid left Kyiv for the city only to come under aerial bombardment.
It never made it.
In videos shared to social media, Biliakovych surveyed the damage to his home including his father’s bedroom where the walls are pockmarked by damage from shrapnel that ripped through the walls.
His sleeping father was showered in broken glass and debris.
"It was a really sh*t night, I’m sorry for [using a] bad word but it’s really sh*t."
Surveying the damage to his yard, he said he believed his terrified dog had lost an ear in the blast.
In the past few days the war has spread to areas in the west of Ukraine, that had up until then been considered relatively safe.
Not anymore, Roman Melish, a baroque singer and countertenor who has performed throughout Europe, says.
The "Orcs", as Ukrainians call the Russian troops, are making their presence known.
"Since last night [Sunday] — they usually carry out air raids in the dark — Russian aircraft have fled bombing the western regions of Ukraine.
"At dawn today, these Orcs bombed a peacekeeping and security centre located 20km from the Polish border, 35 people died and 134 were injured."
He is safe but he knows what is potentially coming.
"I am not at the epicentre of the most bloody places of war, but my friends are.
"We are all changing now, we have all closed our emotions.
"The only emotion that fills me is hatred."
The shift from fear to anger is universal, he says.
"We are now in combat mode, because we have to fight for survival.
"Because this is genocide — genocide in the 21st century."
• Ukraine is 11 hours behind New Zealand.
