‘Having my war coffee’: Ukrainian mother tweets diary of tragic life for ‘ordinary’ people under invasion

It’s to show future generations ‘how life can change in one second,’ says Yaroslava Antipina

As the conflict with Russia rages on around her, Ukrainian mother Yaroslava Antipina takes to social media every morning to begin her day with a “war coffee”.

Ms Antipina, who is in western Ukraine, turned her Twitter account into a real-time diary shortly after Vladimir Putin launched his full-scale invasion of her country on 24 February.

The coffee tweet is usually the first of multiple Twitter updates throughout the day, where she shows her near 100,000 followers what it is like to be an “ordinary” person living through war.

In a post on Thursday, she wrote about the “sounds of life” – birds singing, watching TV, people on the street – it is “regular life,” she said, “but with a war taste.”

Ms Antipina, normally a resident of Kyiv, left the capital city on 1 March with her 19-year-old son to live with her mother in the west of Ukraine.

In an interview with USA Today, she said she had not attempted to flee Ukraine because her son, like all Ukrainian men between the ages of 18 and 60, is forbidden to leave.

The day the pair left, she posted a photo of a small, grey hard-shell suitcase. “It’s all I can take with me. All my life is [in] this bag,” she tweeted.

In another interview, this one with CBS News, she did not know when or if she could return to her home. “It’s not just the things, the belongings.

“It’s about memories, people, everything I had,” she said. “My coffees, my just regular days, all the things I cannot have with me, I couldn’t take. I know that I'm lucky because I know people moved without anything.”

Asked about her popular hashtag, Ms Antipina said: “War coffee is resistance. Strength. We Ukrainians need such things to survive, to be strong.

“Because for me, the very hard thing right now is the uncertainty. You don't know what's going on the next day, next week. But we will manage. We have no choice.”

Occasionally, the mother-of-one asks her followers to share a photo of their “peace coffee or tea”.

Kyiv has been hit by Russian shells this week as the war goes on (Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.)

One of the last times she did so, on 8 March, thousands liked the post and dozens submitted images of their hot beverages from all around the world.

Keeping the diary has not only connected Ms Antipina to a global community – who she tweeted recently she is “lucky to have” – but allowed her to document the situation for future generations to show them how “life can be changed in one second”.

“To show them what the world really is, for you, for us, for ordinary people,” she told CBS News. “It’s not about only blood, et cetera, but how our life can be changed in one second, and how important [it is] to keep this peace. And how important [it is] to be strong in any situation.”

And she added: “[It is] also for them to be strong, to enjoy life and to keep the peace everywhere in the world, in every country.”

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