The day I first heard a Shahed drone buzzing overhead

CHERNIVTSI — This afternoon in the normally quiet western Ukrainian city of Chernivtsi, I found myself running home in terror, chased by the sounds of a Shahed flying overhead.

It was a first for me — despite my trips to frequently-targeted cities like Kyiv and Kharkiv since the start of the full-scale war, I’d never heard any major explosions. I caught myself on trains to and from those cities during attacks, yet was lucky enough to be on the ground when they weren’t actively targeted by missiles and drones.

Other than soldiers’ funerals, my home region, Chernivtsi — Ukraine’s smallest, tucked away in the southwest near the Romanian border — usually feels as distant from the front lines as one can get. It has long been a haven for those escaping the war’s daily horrors, with little in the way of critical infrastructure to draw the enemy’s eye.

At first, I was in disbelief — it couldn’t possibly be a Shahed in my Chernivtsi. Yet, as the sound grew louder, ominously close, denial ultimately gave way to dread. All I could do was run as fast as possible, desperate to close the distance between myself and home. My mind fixated on one fragile consolation: my little daughter was at home with family, not in imminent danger with me. But that hope was quickly shattered by a fresh surge of anxiety — what if they weren’t safe, either?

Chernivtsi is just an hour and a half drive from the Romanian city of Suceava. Looking online, I see that Suceava’s international airport is welcoming flights today not only from Bucharest but from London and Milan, too. It feels like an alternate universe where less than a hundred kilometers away, people make plans for travel, be it for work or pleasure, and most certainly do not give a second thought to the nearby war.

They believe the war is confined within Ukraine’s borders — a grim reality that cannot possibly touch them. To be honest, many people here in Chernivtsi once thought the same. There was always a temptation for such people to dismiss the air raid siren as mere noise and to believe that missile and drone strikes would remain confined to regions eastward.

Yet, back in June, military volunteer Mariia Berlinska warned that Russian drones are capable of hunting civilians deep inside cities far from the front lines, even mentioning Chernivtsi and Lviv by name. She cautioned that by 2026, swarms of thousands of drones in “hunting mode” could become a grim new reality for people in western Ukraine.

In my opinion, the past 24 hours — Russia launched a Shahed drone at Chernivtsi overnight, too, I should add — have signaled yet another decisive moment in the war, even if it might not immediately seem that way.

Let me explain.

Until now, missiles and drones rarely targeted Chernivtsi Oblast. However, the truth since the start of the full-scale war in 2022 is that no region is completely safe from Russian drone and missile attacks.

Today’s drone attack on Chernivtsi, Ukraine’s “little Vienna,” which is beautiful yet admittedly unremarkable in scale, is a blatant act of sadism on the part of Russia. This attack isn’t remotely capable of influencing the situation on the battlefield. I’m sure that wasn’t its task.

Those in the Kremlin who declare their sphere of influence will stretch “from Lisbon to Vladivostok” were never going to stop at Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts. Their hunger for empire is ravenous and unrelenting — a bloodthirst that can never be satiated. This was never just a “territorial dispute” for them — it has always been a brutal quest for world domination fueled by endless violence, because only through force and fear does Russia believe its power can be maintained.

I wonder when the rest of the world — especially our neighbors in Europe — will truly grasp this.

We occasionally hear about drone parts being shot down and landing in border settlements in Poland, Romania, or Moldova. Today, a Russian drone landed in Lithuania.

If these incidents become more frequent, and if their own people start to suffer casualties, will they finally recognize the threat posed by Russia is facing not just Ukraine, but them as well? How many kilometers must war travel before it reaches your doorstep — and you finally see it’s also coming for you?

Tonight, I’ll be doing something I haven’t done since the full-scale war began: packing an emergency bag with my personal documents and other essentials for the shelter. I doubt today’s strike on Chernivtsi will be the last — why would it be? After everything that’s happened over more than three years of the full-scale war, I can’t shake the sinking feeling that, for those of us in what was once “peaceful” western Ukraine, this is only the beginning of something much worse. Not only because Russia appears to take sick pleasure in targeting Ukrainian cities.

As I’ll place each item in that emergency bag, I’ll think of the dumb luck I’ve had up until now.

When I once mentioned to someone here in Chernivtsi the fact that I’d never heard the sound of explosions despite occasionally traveling throughout Ukraine since 2022, they replied that I have a “very powerful guardian angel” watching over me.

But even angels, I suppose, can start to grow weary of war.

Editor’s Note: The opinions expressed in the op-ed section are those of the authors and do not purport to reflect the views of the Kyiv Independent.