People are sheltering in metro stations as blasts continue in Kyiv, and queues to cross into Poland stretch for 30km to 40km, Honorary Consul for New Zealand in Ukraine Mark Wright says.
Photo: AFP
Wright is usually the first point of official contact for New Zealanders in Ukraine and has lived there since 2003, having also spent three years there from 1996.
He said they heard the first missile blasts about 6am.
"This morning's wake-up was a real surprise and ... then you have this feeling of anger and why, why are you doing this, why would you be trying to do this.
"What's going on just didn't make sense and it still doesn't. I'm still bemused and frustrated and angry that ... as lovely as Ukraine is, the people of Ukraine can be put under such an amount of stress and danger as is being done by Russia."
The feeling since then was eerie and unnerving, he said.
"You don't know what's going on and you don't know what's going to happen next ... you think things are quite normal in the street and then suddenly you'll hear these deep booms - one just went off. Oh God, one just went off and that was much closer.
"When you get these and you hear the concussion coming through the house it's pretty unnerving."
He said the advice was for people hearing three large blasts on the sirens in the area to go to bomb shelters.
"Ironic that these metro shelters, the metro stations in Kyiv, were originally built as part of the nuclear strategy ... a community refuge in a nuclear attack ... there are a lot of people in the metros already and they've been sheltering there during the day.
"We've got to consider ourselves being very lucky, we're obviously mobile, we're outside the city, we've got access to vehicles and suchlike but there are many hundreds of thousands of people who don't and it's the elderly and the young and the young families and so on who don't have flexibility to move ... who are really quite trapped and can't escape the consequences of what happens."
Most of the blasts seemed to be targeted at airports and strategic bases, but he expected telecommunications and power would soon be affected too.
"We watch the news consistently of course and pick up on what's happening around the region, it's concerning that the type of shelling that's going on seems to be targeted at the strategic areas. We haven't lost any communications or power lines yet thank goodness but that's obviously a point which will, I would think, be targeted in due course."
The morning had seen many people getting ready to leave if they had to, collecting fuel and cash, and queues to cross the border into Poland were now stretching for 30km to 40km.
"And that's not just one border, that's going to be all of them. So the Polish authorities have indicated that they'll make available camps for people so there is a facilitation for those that want to leave the country and find safety in Poland.
"For the rest of us we've got the approach that we've got family here, we've got assets here, we've got businesses here, and to leave that and colleagues ... I feel there is something of a moral obligation in terms of leadership to be keeping with the team and however foolish that may sound, it's a principle."
"That's the path I've chosen and I've been here for a long time and I've loved living in this country and I still do, and I still hope that it will be a country that returns to some normality without a regime that destroys what is absolutely a beautiful place."
He said his message to New Zealanders was to voice their concerns to local representatives to send a clear message the attack was intolerable.
"We don't live in that era anymore, we shouldn't have to. This is a world that should've changed dramatically from that and this is a sad indictment on where we've come to.
"A country invading a sovereign state, and a state that has ambitions to develop its own integrity and status in the wrold - it has done truly remarkably since 1991 to achieve that, and there's a long way to go but they are really well on the path. To see that another country can place this type of threat over that nationality, that integrity and that sovereign status of the country is just unbelievable."