Addario spoke to CNN from a bunker, where she was taking shelter after a siren went off.
“It’s an incredible operation,” she said of Ukrainians volunteering for the nation’s defense. “I’m seeing people around the city coming out. I’ve seen everyone from teachers — there’s a coffee roaster behind me who is here now working with the volunteers and the military. An accountant. There’s a woman here who’s fiance decided to join two weeks ago and said, ‘I don’t have time to get married, we’re at war.’ So she decided to join. I mean, it’s incredible.”
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The photojournalist said the mood in the city has gotten “progressively more tense” in the last two weeks, ratcheting up in the last five days.
“People are really jittery,” she said. “There are checkpoints popping up around the city. You have to be really careful because people are nervous. They’re worried about Russians infiltrating, and so there are random shootings. So yeah, it’s very tense.”
"I'm seeing … teachers … a coffee roaster … an accountant. [A woman's] fiancé decided to join [the fight] … he said 'I don't have time to get married, we're at war,' so she decided to join [too] … it's incredible."
Addario said she thinks residents of the country’s capital city are “expecting the worst” but resigned and ready for whatever may occur in the coming days and weeks.
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“I think no one knows what’s going to happen … We were on our way out this morning, every day there’s sort of a new set of credentials or permits required to move around,” she said. “We saw an open supermarket without a line, so we ran in and bought everything we could. I mean, people are stocking up on supplies. It’s really sort of a city under siege. It’s a city that’s just preparing for whatever happens next.”
Below, some of Addario’s photos from Ukraine:
Julia, a teacher, weeps as she and other volunteers waited to be deployed to defend Kyiv during the Russian invasion of Ukraine. – Lynsey Addario/The New York TimesSvetlana Akimova, 82, shelters in a parking garage after heavy fighting took place outside her apartment building in Kyiv on Saturday. – Lynsey Addario/The New York TimesPeople wait to donate blood in Kyiv as Russian forces assaulted the Ukrainian capital on Saturday. – Lynsey Addario/The New York TimesUkrainian Territorial Defense Forces volunteers drill being deployed to defend Kyiv. – Lynsey Addario/The New York TimesUkrainian emergency workers outside a high-rise residential building in southwestern Kyiv that was struck by Russian rocket fire on Saturday. – Lynsey Addario/The New York TimesUkrainians clean up debris after a residential building was hit by missiles in Kyiv. – Lynsey Addario/The New York TimesMaryna Poroshenko, the former Ukrainian first lady, serves food to Ukrainian volunteer soldiers at a base where rapid training is taking place in Kyiv. – Lynsey Addario/The New York TimesArmed volunteers muster to defend Kyiv. – Lynsey Addario/The New York TimesUkrainian volunteer soldiers are readied with rapid training at a base in Kyiv. – Lynsey Addario/The New York TimesSasha Gonsharova, 38, cares for her 8-month-old son, who has anemia, in a basement shelter of the Okhmadet Children’s Hospital in Kyiv. – Lynsey Addario/The New York TimesWomen tend to their sick children in the basement shelter of the Okhmadet Children’s Hospital. – Lynsey Addario/The New York TimesKateryna Andriivna, 82, cries outside of a long line at a pharmacy that she has no food and no bread, and can’t get her heart medication because of the ongoing curfew and security situation in Kyiv. – Lynsey Addario/The New York TimesA Ukrainian volunteer soldier smokes a cigarette at a base in Kyiv. – Lynsey Addario/The New York Times
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