Ukrainian officials are surveying the damages after its southern port city of Mariupol was attacked Monday.
Russia offered safe passage for Ukrainians if the city were to be surrendered. In stunning defiance, many Ukrainians decided to stay, defend and maintain control of Mariupol.
“The bombs and rockets, it was very scary for my family,” 41-year-old Slava Lapin told 13News via Zoom from western Ukraine.
"My little daughter, just one years old, she was very bad sleep in the night and tell us, ‘Papa! Boom! Boom! Boom!'” Slava recalled, sighing at the memory of his little girl imitating the sounds of Russian forces bombing their country.
Slava’s wife and three children, including his 1-year-old daughter, are now safe in Poland, his youngest too young to understand where her daddy is right now or the reasons he can’t be with her.
Slava remained in Ukraine.
“I am the man who must go to war. I can’t go with them. I must stay in the country," he explained.
Even though Slava is a salesman, not a soldier, he is ready to defend his country’s sovereignty.
“I’m not war guy. I’m not military, but my grandfather was in the war. My dad was in the war and, in my heart, I’m not scared,” he said.
Slava is worried, though, about his parents who live in Kyiv and were too old to evacuate.
“I ask them, ‘Go!’ They answer me, ‘No, If we must die, we must die in our home in Kyiv,’” Slava said, also adding that his wife’s parents live in Crimea and don’t believe there is a war.
“It’s terrible. I tell them they are zombies. They don’t believe us that we have war,” said Slava.
There is a war and it’s the reason Slava can’t be with his family right now and he doesn’t know when he’ll see them again. He thinks of his littlest one, now a refugee of that war.
“I don’t know how to tell her it’s alright,” said Slava.