As I enter Ukraine, the streets are dark.
It’s taken a day to get here and it’s surreal to finally be standing in a country at war.
Ten hours ago I boarded a flight from London to Krakow, Poland. From there it is a three-hour drive to the Ukraine border.
I’m here with a team of journalists from Newsround to find out how children are doing a year after Russia invaded Ukraine.
As we start our journey towards the border, it starts snowing.
Crossing into Ukraine is surprisingly straightforward. Our vehicle is parked next to a white van painted with the Polish and Ukrainian flags. It carries clothes, water bottles and other essentials.
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Every vehicle is inspected. I hand over my documents and we wait.
15 minutes later, the engine is on and we are moving. Our car tires slowly move on Ukrainian soil.
After months of planning, this is the moment I’ve been waiting for and my heart starts beating faster.
Minutes later, the car stops. I step outside to record a quick video on my phone. The air is cool and it is very quiet.
I look around but there is not much to see in the dark.
I met 13-year-old Viola, who had to flee her home in the middle of the night after her village was overrun by Russian soldiers.
We continue driving to the city of Lviv in western Ukraine.
There are lots of houses set back from the main road. People are indoors, trying to stay warm – it’s bitterly cold outside.
No lights are on, instead I see candles flickering in the windows as we pass rows of houses. It’s getting dark which means people in this area are not getting power tonight.
The next morning, I get up early and get back in the car.
The journey to Kyiv, the capital of Ukraine, is seven hours long.
Just like in the UK, there are petrol stations and fast food restaurants along the motorway, but there is something different that I have never seen before.
Buildings were destroyed, apartment blocks badly damaged and warehouses burnt to the ground.
This is all evidence of war, which I have not seen with my own eyes.
The war – the biggest in Europe since World War II – is now a year old. It’s been a year since Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered his military to invade Ukraine.
Last year, 13-year-old Viola had to flee her home in the middle of the night after her village was overrun by Russian soldiers.
Viola looks through the ruins where her house once stood
“We didn’t have time to look back at our house and we didn’t know where we were going,” he says.
Viola tells how the Russian soldiers destroyed everything. “One night, we experienced a huge explosion that lit up my bedroom, shook the house and woke us up.
“We were running through other people’s gardens with the sound of bullets at our feet.”
Viola, her younger sister and mum managed to escape and were evacuated to a safer part of Ukraine.
Once she invited me to see where her house was. No bricks, doors or windows. A pile of twisted metal, some old pots and pans and charred wood remained.
Memories of what happened here are difficult for Viola to recall, but like many children I met in Ukraine, she is determined to pursue the things that make her happy, like playing the piano and spending time with her dog. .
We ran through other people’s gardens with the sound of bullets at our feet.
Later that night, I return to our hotel in the center of Kyiv. All the street lights are off so people hold torches to see where they are going. Huge churches with golden domes are now shrouded in darkness.
Many families in Ukraine now lead different lives.
I came to meet 11-year-old Dimitri. His town was also occupied by Russian soldiers.
When the fighting started, his family and his neighbors hid in garages on the edge of town, hoping they would be safe. They were wrong.
When the Russian shelling began, a little boy and his father were killed in a garage next door.
Dimitri’s apartment was also hit by a missile.
This is 11-year-old Dimitri. His apartment was hit by a missile
“I could never have imagined that a situation like this would happen,” he tells me. “I could never imagine that there would be a war and I could never imagine that my flat would burn down.”
Dimitri’s family had to find somewhere else to hide.
They moved into the basement of a nearby pre-school building – where they stayed for two months, sharing space with 270 others. Conditions were difficult – food and clean water were limited.
He told me: “We spent a lot of time in the basement – it was cold and dark, of course we could see many people, parents, children worried about their loved ones, of course we heard explosions. It was scary.”
I followed Dimitri to see the cellar for myself. It smells damp and very cold.
The community recently tried to brighten up the place by painting the walls in the basement.
Dimitri says it looks very good now. Last year, there was no electricity or internet in the basement.
We hear explosions that scare us even more
Inside the basement, there are plenty of rooms for children with small beds, toys to play with, and bottles of water and food.
No windows, people come here when they hear air raid sirens.
Dimitri shows me the bed he slept in when he had to stay in the basement for weeks.
He said: “I’ve changed a lot in these last 12 months. I’m starting to understand how good it is to have a home.”
Many children in Ukraine avoid going to school.
Ongoing fighting or destruction of school buildings means only online lessons, and for others that is impossible – no school of any kind.
In the city of Zhytomyr I catch up with children who have returned to class.
My camera operator picks up his camera and starts recording the children listening to their teacher.
I visit the school … and experience my first air raid siren. The kids are quiet as we move to safety in the basement
Seconds later, the lesson is interrupted by a strange noise.
It was an air raid siren, a sound hard to describe and one I had never experienced before.
A loud alarm rang throughout the city and other parts of Ukraine, notifying the population that an airstrike was expected.
We begin following the children in the basement of the school where we stay for two hours.
I ask a boy how he feels. “I’m a little scared and a little worried about my relatives and myself and all my friends,” she says.
Underground, lessons continue and children dance and play games.
Teachers try to distract them from their worries – this is a habit for them now.
Following more air raid sirens I am underground in the car park of my hotel. Missiles hit buildings less than 10 miles away
The next morning, I woke up to the sound of another air raid siren in my hotel room. My phone goes off, messages from the team telling me to get down to the basement of the hotel as soon as possible.
We will be underground for the next four hours. The parking lot of the hotel has been turned into a shelter.
In the morning, Russia sends a new wave of missiles over Ukraine. One lands less than 10 miles from our hotel, damaging buildings and killing civilians.
War gives children little chance to have a normal childhood and do all the things they enjoy.
I visited a group set up to help them relax. It’s a place where they can talk, play and create. Problems are put to one side, at least for a few hours, with a little help from Bice, a very energetic dog.
I visit the after school center where the kids relax and chat
Sophia comes to these after-school groups and tells me: “The children remember this war forever, some of them have to take counseling for a long time to solve their problems.
“I don’t think this should have happened to the kids.”
As I leave Ukraine after more than a week of travel, I speak to the children and am overwhelmed by their honesty and what they have endured.
I have seen communities come together. They are protecting each other.
No one knows what the long-term impact on children will be – and no one knows when this war will end.
But what is clear is that the children I meet, despite everything, have hope and determination to keep going.
I leave Ukraine knowing that one day I will return.
You can watch a 30-minute documentary Ukraine: A Children’s Story on BBC iPlayer.
