REPORTER’S NOTEBOOKFor a brief moment, Al Jazeera cameraman experiences life under Russia’s bombs – and all of its side effects.Kyiv, Ukraine – I’m wrenched from my sleep by what feels like an explosion in my stomach, as if a balloon has burst. This feeling is followed immediately by the sound of a real explosion. Now, I’m wide awake.
Phone messages cast a cold blue light into a corner of my room, warnings from our Ukrainian producer Luda that drones and ballistic missiles are incoming. As my eyes adjust to the harsh glow of the phone, I register that it is 2am and, in my deep slumber, I had missed the air raid siren that had gone off almost an hour earlier. Typically, the air siren will sound twice, once to signal the imminent start of an attack and a second time to sound the all clear.
My innate response is to turn over and return to the sanctity of sleep as quickly as I was rudely awakened from it, but a secondary explosion, likely a surface-to-air interception, makes this physically impossible and activates a certain morbid dread in the back of my mind.
The perceived wisdom is to draw heavy curtains and stay away from windows because a nearby blast could produce a shock wave that might smash them, showering occupants with shards of glass. My curtain-less windows loom ominously ove …
