Roman Sheremeta

April 9th, 2025

The faint-hearted should not read this.

Three years ago, I translated the story of Christina Jolos, who fled Mariupol while the city was surrounded by russian forces. This story is not for the faint-hearted — but please, read it. Share it, so others may understand the horror of russia’s war against Ukraine.

Yesterday, at our own risk, we left Mariupol under gunfire. We spent the night in a field in the gray zone. It was freezing outside. Thank God we are alive. We are alive to scream that everyone who stayed in Mariupol needs help! This is not a city of heroes. This is a city of fear, death, and horror.

We didn’t have a humanitarian convoy. No one evacuated us. We ran behind cars under fire. We joined a group and taped “Children!” signs on our cars. I personally put my own son in the car as a rocket flew into the next yard. No one saved us. We saved ourselves — with the help of God.

There is no connection in the city, no water, no gas, no ambulances. People with torn limbs bleed in their yards, and no one can help them. These are peaceful people — our friends, our neighbors, our relatives. The dead are simply being covered with soil where they fall. Their families can’t even find them later. Most often, these people are killed while searching for water, standing in line, or cooking soup over a campfire.

Yes, we collected snow, warmed it over a fire, and cooked macaroni. My family was in the bomb shelter at High School No. 2. Three days ago, a shell hit it and shattered some windows. A woman was wounded in the hip. She lay on the first floor all night, begging someone to give her poison so she wouldn’t feel the pain. There was no one to take her to a hospital. Every day and every night there are gunshots, whistles, trembling walls, and the horror of wondering: “Where will it hit?”

Doctors from Hospital No. 3 (what’s left of it) work heroically — they perform surgeries, they save lives. The woman with the wounded hip was eventually taken by the Red Cross. I pray she survives. Two shells hit our building and two more landed in our yard. One tore off our neighbor’s leg.

My mother, Angela, and my three brothers — Roman (16), Vasya (11), and Vladislav (9) — live in a building in the city center, on the fifth floor. My in-laws, Lyubov and Anatoly, live on the ninth floor. That building is now completely destroyed.

There are almost no shelters left in the city — no bunkers with ventilation. At best, people hide in basements. My mother’s building doesn’t even have one. People must be evacuated — women, children, the elderly. We need buses. We need a green corridor to evacuate!

I pray for my loved ones, for every Mariupolian, for every Ukrainian soldier. The enemy came and left us no choice — but there is nothing more valuable than human life. This must end!

There is no food. No medicine. When the snow melts, there will be no water. Pharmacies and grocery stores are looted or burned. The dead are not taken away. Police are telling relatives of those who died natural deaths to open windows and place the bodies on balconies, then take them to the church.

You think you understand what’s happening— but you don’t, unless you’ve been here. I can now hear sirens and I’m not afraid. For 16 days in Mariupol, we had no power — no warnings before bombs fell from planes.

I beg everyone: stop this. I don’t know what will happen next, but I pray this never happens again — in any city, in Ukraine or the world. Not to anyone. Not a pregnant woman in a hospital who couldn’t give life because a shell killed her. Not a mother shielding her son as walls and windows shake. Not an elderly man left without hope. Not wounded civilians dying in the streets.

No one.

They show you burning buildings — but not the people burning inside. Do I need to burn myself for you to believe this has to stop?

These 21 days changed everyone. Everything has changed. Nothing matters anymore — nothing has value — except saving the lives of those still trapped in this hell of Mariupol.