Frightened Ukrainians took to subway stations on Thursday as air raid sirens rang out across the country's main cities following Russia's launch of its feared military attack.
Ksenya Michenka looked deeply shaken as she took cover with her teenage son - their cat peeking out of a bag - in a metro station off Kyiv's historic Maidan Square.
The expansive square was the focal point off two pro-Western revolutions that Russian President Vladimir Putin tried to reverse in 2004 and 2014.
But the former Soviet republic continued pulling away from Russia and building ties with the West.
Mr Putin responded on Thursday by doing what many thought unimaginable - launching an all-out air and ground assault on Ukraine.
Ms Michenka said she ran to the subway station for cover "because Russia has started a war against Ukraine."
"We need to save our lives," she said in a tense voice. "We hope the metro can save us because it is underground."
People take shelter in a metro station in Kyiv in the morning of 24 February, 2022. Source: Getty / DANIEL LEAL/AFP via Getty Images
"I woke up because of the sounds of bombing," said 29-year-old Maria Kashkoska as she sat on the subway station's floor.
Ukrainian defence officials later said that Kyiv's main international airport had come under a Russian bombing attack.
"I packed a bag and tried to escape. We are sitting here, waiting," she said after packing her charger and a few essentials.
The booms were followed a few hours later by air raid sirens that sounded over Kyiv at the break of dawn.
Ukrainian military vehicles move past Independence square in central Kyiv as cities across Ukraine were hit with what Ukrainian officials said were Russian missile strikes and artillery on 24 February, 2022. Source: Getty / DANIEL LEAL/AFP via Getty Images
Queues formed outside currency exchanges as well as petrol stations.
AFP reporters saw people carrying suitcases to bus and train stations in an effort to get out of Kyiv and move further west.
Residents of Kyiv leave the city following pre-offensive missile strikes of the Russian armed forces on 24 February, 2022. Source: Getty / Pierre Crom/Getty Images
'Remain calm'
But nowhere seemed completely safe.
Air raids sounded over the western city of Lviv - the new diplomatic home of US and European officials who fled Kyiv - and the sounds of exploding bombs echoed across the northern city of Kharkiv.
Kharkiv rests just 35 kilometres south of the Russian border and once served as the capital of Ukraine when it was still part of the Soviet state.
Russian-backed insurgents tried but failed to seize the city of 1.4 million people when they launched their deadly insurgency in 2014.
"I once again call on the people of Kharkiv to stay at home and to remain as calm as possible," mayor Igor Terekhov said.
But the most frightening explosions and heaviest fighting was ringing out across the scattering of impoverished towns that hug Ukraine's frontline with Russian-backed rebels in the east.
Emergency unit staff treat an injured man after Russian bombings on the eastern Ukraine town of Chuguiv on 24 February , 2022. Source: Getty / ARIS MESSINIS/AFP via Getty Images
An AFP team in the eastern town of Chuguiv saw a man crying over a body stretched out on the ground.
Firefighters tried to extinguishes the flames of a house burning after an apparent attack.
"If they continue to bomb us, I will find weapons and defend my homeland," said 62-year-old Vladimir Levichov.
