ARKive post 6 — Khrystyna Oryshchak & Maria Savoskula

Image created using charcoal and sound waveforms from field recordings of a Shahed-131/136 drone in Kyiv on 8 March 2025

With ballistics, the warning comes just seconds before impact. Drones take longer. Ballistics are over in an instant – what they leave behind is often catastrophic. You spend the rest of the day reading tragic headlines: deaths, destroyed places you knew. That aftermath, for me, is more traumatic than the explosions themselves. People are still living in Ukraine – those who didn’t leave and, for various reasons, have accepted life under this constant danger.

The alerts usually come late at night or early in the morning. Going out to a cold shelter – like a tube station or underground car park – at that hour disrupts your entire rhythm of life. Sacrificing rest, routine, and a sense of normality feels like giving up a part of life itself.

I stay home.

It’s scary when an explosion happens nearby. At first, the threat feels distant – just news, warnings. Even when they say drones are coming your way, it doesn’t feel real. But when they arrive and you hear the defences firing, hear the buzzing overhead, it becomes immediate.

You hear the war. And in that moment, you’re reminded: this is real. We’re not on the frontline, but the war reaches us through sound.

Before bed, you read alerts: “Critical number of drones in the air,” or “Two missile carriers deployed with a volley of Kalibrs.” You think: I need to sleep now, before it starts. Because if it’s a large or combined attack, sleep will be impossible.

These attacks come in waves. First the drones – too many to stop. Then, when defences are stretched, the missiles follow. If the timing overlaps, the sounds become chaotic: buzzing, blasts, impacts, layered and endless.

You realise –

Tonight, there won’t be any sleep.