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When Annoshka Kehoe told her family to start preparing for a Russian invasion, they laughed and said they would “put sellotape over the windows" of their 10th floor apartment.
Last night (Thursday 25 February), she told Express that her mother, twin sister, sister's husband and their son were in a car, desperately hoping to make it to the Polish border, and then to Jersey.
From her island home of nearly two decades, Anna - known as Annoshka to her friends - had been closely following the news, regularly sending what her family and friends in Ukraine thought were “scary videos” and “propaganda”.
But as the shadow of war loomed large over the “beautiful” port town of Odessa where she grew up, Wednesday - the eve of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s offensive - was a “normal day” for Anna’s family, who live in a building opposite a military airport.
Her sister had even prepared a sandwich for lunch for her husband for the next day.
“It has been scary. I have been nervous, breaking down for the past two weeks, and they say, ‘Calm down.’ They go on picnics, they have meetings with their friends, they go to work.”
When Anna sent messages about food supplies to friends and family in the country, she received messages back joking that the shops were full - they would go out and take a photo of the shelves if she was worried.
Worried, Anna messaged her sister through the night as Wednesday became Thursday.
After Putin warned of a “special military operation” to “de-Nazify” Ukraine in an early-hours televised address, Anna received reassurance that nothing had happened yet.
"We were bombed"
Then, “at 5:05, she sent me a message: ‘We were bombed.’”
Less than 12 hours later, her family had crammed their lives into a backpack and were driving towards the Polish border, traffic all around them, sirens and horns blaring, bombs and car lights turning “everything red”.
Fortunately, amid the joking, some of Anna’s advice had been heeded earlier in the week.
On Tuesday, her mother withdrew her pension and her sister and husband took out cash and filled up their car with fuel.
Days later, cards are no longer working, and fuel is increasingly hard to come by.
Thankfully, the move gave them the boost they needed to attempt to escape the city they call home.
Meanwhile, those who cannot - or will not - leave are urgently seeking places of safety.
Media reports have been flooded with images of people packed like sardines into Ukraine's famously opulent train stations.
Anna’s friend told her that the Government released a list of shelters - but when they went to check some of them out in advance, “half of them said, 'No, we don’t have anything here, go away.'"
“If there will be bombing tonight, they don’t know where to go. Nobody is prepared.”
Anna and her family trying to push aside thoughts of what has to be left behind - and what little that could be left if they ever get to return.
The have fled without the majority of their possessions. Among the parts of their life they haven't been able to take with them are a pet hamster, and a large tank full of fish. “They will all be dead,” Anna laments.
“And there are little things like my sister was planning a little party and put [food] in the freezer, and there was something she had bought in sale, a new dress.”
Anna left Ukraine to make Jersey her home 16 years ago. Here, she lives with her husband, Glen, and their young son.
The pair met while he was travelling in Ukraine.
“It was before the internet, we sent love letters and were visiting each other.”
Ultimately, however, they decided that they needed to be together and moved to Jersey, where she took on jobs ranging from a shop advisor to starting her own successful nail business before becoming a full-time mum.
She loves the island, and has “very good, close friends” here - a group from a range of nations including Belarus, Israel, Latvia, Lithuania, Kazakhstan, united by their ability to speak Russian.
Anna herself runs a playgroup, where she teaches their children “numbers, letters and colours” in Russian.
“I really hope all this nightmare will not affect our community here. We are very very close here. We really support each other. We pass secondhand clothes to each other’s kids, we look after each other’s kids, we do sleepovers and big parties.”
But her passion for island life, and precious friendships made in Jersey, have not detracted from her deep affection for Odessa.
Explaining how elements of the “beautiful” city are modelled on Paris, she paints a picture of streets lined with “an old type of oak trees and cobbled roads, with a beautiful opera theatre (pictured top) - it’s an exact copy of an Italian opera theatre, all gold.”
Anna continues: “It’s buzzing in the summer. It’s like Ibiza - it’s all nightclubs, all fashion, a lot of different theatres, music, concerts, exhibitions.”
“It’s an amazing city,” she pauses, “but it’s all under bombing now. It’s not real, all day I think I will wake up and everything will finish.”
More heartbreaking for Anna is that many improvements were underway in Odessa - including a new international airport terminal, with a direct link between Odessa and London due to start up in March.
She was “so excited” that her mother, who often comes to stay with her in Jersey, would be able to significantly cut her journey, which would normally involve stopping in Kyiv.
Anna’s mother is a “nervous” woman who has to keep an eye on her blood pressure.
When she visits Jersey, “she travels only with hand luggage because she once forgot to pick up her suitcase - she was so nervous, she almost died,” Anna laughs. She is only half-joking.
Yesterday, as the family set off on their journey towards Poland, her blood pressure was 170 - “stroke-type high blood pressure.”
But no one is panicking in the car, Anna says, having spoken with them just half an hour before, "adrenalin is keeping them going."
The family are “about half-way”, but stuck on blocked roads.
“They are stuck on road because a bridge was bombed. I spoke with my sister and she was explaining we don’t even need [car] lights because everywhere around is like sunset. Everything is red, burning bomb shells, there, there and there. They constantly can hear them and see the light."
In the noise, her mother is “sitting quietly”.
The ultimate goal is to get to Jersey, making use of the Government’s offer of visas for family members of Ukrainian people living locally.
But even the first step - making it to the Polish border - is difficult, almost a race against time.
"If Russia takes all Ukraine, I can't see my mum, sister, nephew. If they survive, how will they survive? Will I ever see them again?"
Right now, Anna says, it's rumoured that adult men are not being allowed to leave the country, as they may be needed to defend against Russian forces.
“My sister’s husband, he’s under 60 so they’re scared Ukraine borders will not let him go.”
The other potential hurdle Anna says she has considered is the mark of ‘Crimea’ in she and her sister’s passports.
Their parents broke up when they were young, and the sisters grew up in Odessa, while their father remains in Crimea.
“In my passport, ‘born in Crimea’. People ask me all the time like I’m a spy or something.”
The language barrier may also prove difficult.
“They can’t speak Polish, no German, no French, very teeny English - how will they get to here?"
If they can make it over the border, Anna’s husband is planning to drive them all the way across Europe to Saint Malo.
They are hoping that, if the family get that far, Jersey’s Government will help ensure that the passage is smooth and all relevant paperwork is in place so that they can join Anna.
Anna is clear that she is not asking for any funding from Government - "I will support them financially, give them roof." She simply hopes that the visas won’t be overly stringent, with the family suddenly ejected from the island at a random point in future.
“I don’t ask that they will stay here forever, but I want to feel my family is safe, and if bombs still [are falling], they will not be forced to go back.”
While that is a concern, she, like her travelling family, is keeping her focus on the present.
Anna says she won't sleep, but it is going to be a long night. Minutes are stretching into hours as long as the queue of traffic before her family's car.
For now, they are continuing to move into the endless stream of red light.
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