I spent Thursday night, my last in Kyiv, at my friend Lily’s house. She had come to our home the previous night – having a guest round somehow gives you a sense of security. As soon as my wife and I arrived, Lily showed us where we’d go if shelling started, an underground car park belonging to the next-door building, which a guard would open if the siren sounded. Some people were already sitting outside the gates waiting: a young mother with a sleeping toddler in a buggy; several groups of youngsters and their cats.

We went up to Lily’s apartment, put our phones and computers on to charge, and made tea. We wondered whether Kyiv might be protected from indiscriminate shelling because it had so many embassies – or dangerous because it had so many government buildings? We talked and talked: about the situation, about the fact that Lily didn’t have a lock on her toilet door, about the hundreds of messages we were all receiving wanting to know how we were. (I wrote “we’re ok” many times over.) All the while I was listening out for sirens or explosions, but it remained quiet. Lily poured us some home-made sloe gin, and I suddenly knew I had to sleep. I had the feeling that nothing would wake me. Not even Putin!

In fact I had a restless night. Every time I woke, I looked at the phone lying next to the pillow and hesitated: should I read the headlines or not? I managed to suppress the impulse and slept until about 6am. When I woke up the fighting was only 15km away. We decided to go home, pack and leave for our house in the country. Shortly afterwards a siren sounded, which we assumed was the signal for the end of the curfew (it was actually an air raid warning, but we didn’t know it). We walked to our apartment through the empty city, silent except for the siren’s wail.

We tried to think about what we needed to bring. I put almost all the food from the fridge and freezer in bags. My wife packed our documents. We knew we had to take our computers and chargers. I kept asking myself: what have you forgotten? Only when we were halfway to the village did I realise that I didn’t have socks, underwear or washbag.

Halfway to the village I realised that I didn’t have socks, underwear or washbag

Once we were in the car, my wife called her friend Lena, who lives with her 25-year-old son David. My wife asked Lena if she and David, who has autism and walks slowly, wanted to come with us to the village. Lena needed a few minutes to decide. By the time she called back we were stuck in traffic on the western edge of the city. Could we pick her and David up?

All the avenues leading to the main exit route were jammed with cars. If I turned off to pick up Lena we’d never have made it out of the city. She and her son would have to find their way to our car before the traffic moved.

I counted five cars abandoned after a collision, just lying there in the middle of the road

Half an hour later I saw them at the edge of the road and shouted out of the window. She ran through a gap between a bus and a lorry to our car. “Where’s David?” I asked. She pointed at the pavement where he stood, carrying a large black suitcase. She shouted encouragingly at him and eventually he made his way over.

It normally takes an hour to reach the village, which is 100km out of Kyiv. On Friday it took four and a half hours. Cars swerved dangerously; drivers were clearly exhausted. If the traffic hadn’t been moving so slowly there might have been fatalities. Some people were so eager to get out they drove in the wrong direction on the empty lane leading to Kyiv, hazard lights on. Armoured personnel carriers, trucks and self-propelled guns often overtook them. I counted five cars that had been abandoned after a collision, just lying there in the middle of the road.

Forest surrounds the road on both sides. Occasionally we saw sandbagged gun emplacements and soldiers peeking out. Every ten minutes an announcement on the radio asked people not to post pictures of Ukrainian defences on social media. When some military Humvees with machineguns rattled by and I reached for my phone, my wife gave me a stern look. “It’s not for Facebook!” I pleaded.

Although we’re scattering, this is a defining moment for Ukraine. I get more and more proud every time you hear the news – the brilliant tactics, the bravery – though of course, we only hear one side of the story. I don’t think Ukraine is ready to accept conditions of peace from Russia. Which is tragic. And good, at the same time.

When we turned into our village, Lazarivka, I felt a sense of relief. Our house has been a shelter from many troubles over the years. We were ready to move there during the standoff with Russia in 2014. We spent most of the first year of the pandemic there, enjoying each phase of spring, planting potatoes, onions, garlic and carrots, picking apples and making grape juice. I wrote a novel there about the civil war in Kyiv in 1919. Throughout this winter we have kept the heating on, in case we needed to flee. Russian gas is expensive €200 ($225) a month – but I didn’t care about the money.

“Where are you?” he asked. “Leave immediately!”

I showed Lena and David their room and made coffee. We began to settle in. I took groceries round to our neighbours, Nina and Tolik, and chatted with them before returning home to write. Then a friend, a well-connected businessman, called from Kyiv.

“Where are you?” he asked. I told him. “Leave immediately!” he said. “I was told by the Americans that the Russian army will take Kyiv in the next 90 hours and then they will arrest everyone who criticised Putin. They already have lists of all pro-Ukrainian activists with addresses!”

it wasn’t until later that we remembered Lena’s cat, stranded in her Kyiv apartment

I didn’t believe him, but I didn’t want to take a chance either. We decided to leave for Lviv, where our children were. Lena and David didn’t want to stay in the village without us, so we all piled back into the car (it wasn’t until later that we remembered Lena’s cat, stranded in her Kyiv apartment).

It took us 22 hours to reach Lviv, a journey that normally takes six. I stayed awake, somehow, with the odd coffee break. We didn’t have quite as much with us this time. My wife had given the frozen meat and fish to Nina and Tolik. Nina cried and hugged my wife. Tolik, who is 70, looked pale and lost. This time I turned off the heating as I left. No one would be back for a long time. ■

Andrey Kurkov is a Ukrainian novelist. His novels include “Death and the Penguin”

PHOTOGRAPHS: WOLFGANG SCHWAN