West Village resident Valentina Bajada, 56, returned to her native Ukraine three years ago to tie up her late mother’s affairs. She remained in Kyiv because of the COVID-19 pandemic and an ongoing legal nightmare involving a squatter who refuses to leave the home she shares with her partner. Bajada, who fled the former Soviet Union in 1989 with her infant son for a better life in the US, is stuck in a country under siege.

Now I’ve experienced what my mother experienced.

My grandmother and my mother survived the Gestapo in 1943. My mother was caught by Gestapo and taken to be shot because they broke the curfew. They used to go pick up potatoes, come home at night and cook it and feed the hungry. She fed them. She was caught.

What saved my mother was she spoke perfect German.

I never thought I’d be in the same situation. I thought all the wars were over and I would live in the most peaceful, incredible times.

On Thursday, I tried to take some pictures of the soldiers — hundreds of soldiers marching with machine guns. One soldier pointed a gun at me and said ‘No cameras.’

I would have been shot. I had to walk away quickly. I’d rather live than take a lousy shot.

On Friday, I was able to get two packages of sugar, one kilo of flour. One bottle of cognac.

There is no bread. There is no canned food. There is no vegetables of any kind.

About a kilometer and a half from us, they blew up a building. A 16-floor building. We heard the explosion.

There were no children on the grounds Friday. There were no people in the parks. People were not walking. The entire city was vacant. People are not going out.

People were taking shelter in the subway but they’re stepping back home. They have to go to the bathroom, they have to eat. There’s nothing in the subway.

We don’t know what’s going on. We’re sitting in the dark. Thank God for YouTube. I can watch American shows and watch American news.

The explosions started around 8:30 in the morning Saturday. They sounded like rockets. It was many, many, many. Not just one.

There are a lot of volunteers who just came to Ukraine in order to fight. They were giving away guns yesterday just like hot dogs to anybody.

People are scared to talk. People are scared to even go outside. Everybody is scared. They don’t know who is who. You don’t know who you’re standing next to. You might say something and it could be just enough for you to be taken away.

People are afraid to call each other. The Ukraine government sends out info that telephone calls will be screened.

Now they’re announcing don’t pick up packages, don’t pick up iPhones, don’t pick up children’s toys. It might be detonated.

People just don’t know what to do. Most of them have food enough for three days, four days. There were 300 people waiting to go into the store Saturday.

Pharmacies today are all shut down. All the banks are shut down. The ATMs are empty.

The curfew starts at 5 o’clock tonight.

Everybody’s just sitting, hoping it’s going away. But it’s not going away.

I would change with you anything to be in New York right now.

My grandmother said one thing before she died. She said Germans came and took what they needed, but when the Russians came, “they took everything.”