Until a few weeks ago, people in Kyiv used to go jogging. To describe the activity in either Russian or Ukrainian you have to use the word “fleeing”: running for the purposes of anything other than escape is a recent phenomenon in this part of the world. Now there are no joggers in Kyiv. Instead, nearly 5m people are running for their lives.

Displacement on this scale is hard to grasp. It’s not a uniform swell of movement – refugees fall into different tribes. The largest group consists of what I call first-timers: people who have no previous experience of fleeing their homes. These individuals are panicking and look to the future with horror. They take things with them that they won’t use – usually too many clothes – and forget the things they need, like passports. Until you’ve crossed the long walkway between checkpoints at the border, it’s hard to understand how greatly possessions can burden you. Donated prams and buggies are lined up on the other side to meet new exiles: many Ukrainian parents have had to abandon theirs coming over and carry children in their arms.

There is also a group I’ll call double refugees, people who fled the war in eastern Ukraine in 2014 and 2015 and resettled in cities such as Kyiv, Vinnytsia and Zhytomyr. Many of them found jobs and some were even able to buy a house or apartment. Now they are running again. They are professionals at fleeing and know what to take (power banks, documents, comfortable shoes). They’re less scared but more gloomy and fatalistic. I saw them on the road from Kyiv in cars with Luhansk and Donetsk licence plates. They seemed to have forgotten how to smile.

There are no joggers in Kyiv: instead, nearly 5m people are running for their lives

I’ve noticed another group, too, who haven’t yet absorbed the indiscriminate restrictions of a country at war, who still dream that they can leave just because they have a passport. One of them was sleeping in my room in Lviv when I left town for a few days last week. Volodymyr, a tractor driver from eastern Ukraine, had kidney disease and was being helped by a Catholic charity that was evacuating patients who needed dialysis. When the group got to the border, Volodymyr was forbidden from crossing: dialysis or no dialysis, a man of fighting age can’t leave Ukraine without certain documents. My sons invited him to our one-bedroom apartment while he sorted out the paperwork.

There are those who plan their exits meticulously, triangulating information from different sources. Most simply want to do what everyone else is doing. There is no such thing as a train ticket in Ukraine any more, or even a planned route. Instead, thousands of people wait at railway stations each day, pushing and shoving their way onto trains. They do not always know the final destination. They just want to go west.

There is a hierarchy of refuge: we each have a different set of choices and options. Lviv, where I’m now based, is safer than the home I left in Kyiv. Across the border in Poland it’s safer still, but I don’t want to leave the war yet (as a 60-year-old man I am unlikely to be forced to fight on the frontline). Staying in the country has given me a certain stature. In this curious world of wartime one-upmanship, however, I’m still below those who never left Kyiv. Then there are people who stayed in frontline cities like Kharkiv, or the desperate souls trying to cross the ruined bridge at Irpin under Russian bombardment (pictured). I notice individuals from bombed cities posting on social media all the time. It sometimes feels like there’s a competition to see who can be the most defiant.

They do not always know the final destination. They just want to go west

Some people can’t work out how defiant they want to be. Friends who were staying not far from Kyiv’s main airport dithered for two weeks. They didn’t want to leave without their passports, which were in their apartment in Kyiv – but they’d have to cross several checkpoints without a car to get there, so they stayed, paralysed by indecision. By day it seemed reasonable to remain, but the sound of shelling at night drove them to the edge of insanity. Eventually a volunteer group helped them get their passports and then head west.

My brother stayed in Kyiv for weeks, even though he lived opposite the Antonov aircraft plant, which has played a part in so many wars – and which was an obvious target this time. A few days ago Russian troops attacked it, and the whole area went up in flames. My brother finally left with his wife, Pepin the cat and Symyon the hamster. Now they are all staying in a cold cottage with an outside toilet in southern Ukraine. Mobile coverage is poor and the family can barely get online. When we do manage to speak, my brother’s first question is always about the news. He doesn’t know anything. I sometimes think that’s a blessing. Information can be dangerous: it can make you panic and move somewhere that’s actually less safe; it can make you want to drive to the frontline and join the fight.

The process of leaving your home behind is not just painful, it’s shameful. You feel like you’re not a person but a bundle of needs. I’ve seen refugees visibly shrink and avert their eyes when interacting with those who still have a home. Others seem disoriented; they had an internal GPS which always took them to the town pharmacy or the baker, and now it’s not functioning.

In Ukraine we have a long history of being forced to leave our lives behind. Parts of the country have variously been encompassed by the Austro-Hungarian empire and the Russian one, often crushing any expression of Ukrainian identity. In the second world war, the Nazis deported more than 2m Ukrainians to Germany as forced labourers. Once there, many tried to pass for Germans to avoid the murderous racism directed at Slavs. Polish neighbours could sometimes be hostile too. I once met a Ukrainian who found himself living in Poland after one of Ukraine’s many border realignments during the 20th century. He told everyone he was Polish; his own son didn’t know he was from Ukraine.

Today’s refugees will have to adapt too. How will people from eastern Ukraine, who speak only Russian, cope in the current atmosphere in places like Ternopil, where only Ukrainian is spoken? Perhaps they’ll have to talk in whispers and proclaim their anti-Putin credentials at every opportunity.

Leaving your home behind makes you feel like aren’t a person but a bundle of needs

At least my brother’s hamster, Symyon, is starting to feel settled. Animals have had a mixed time of it during Ukraine’s great exodus. Some of the inhabitants of Kyiv zoo have been evacuated, but there are thought to be only two weeks’ worth of food supplies left for those that remain. A number of people took their cats and dogs to be put down before leaving Kyiv, but many others took them along in pouches or pet carriers. Animals have an easier time getting out of the country than people: Poland now waves pets through the border without the usual paperwork. You could say it’s an indulgence to worry about animals at a time like this. But they remind us that we are not just refugees. We are people. And worrying about other creatures stops us worrying too much about ourselves. ■

Andrey Kurkov is a Ukrainian novelist. His novels include “Death and the Penguin”. He is sending regular dispatches for 1843 magazine from Ukraine. You can read his previous dispatches, and the rest of our coverage of the war, here

PHOTOGRAPHS: RON HAVIV / VII