‘Terrible and fantastical’: fear and farewells on the road out of Ukraine

Within minutes of the first explosions, Ukraine's great exodus began. Some had been planning for a Russian invasion for months. They had carefully filled the car with petrol, bought food supplies and packed a getaway bag, just in case. And, in many cases, a carrier for much-loved family pets.

Others had done nothing whatsoever. Until Russia's blitzkrieg invasion began early on Thursday, many people in Kyiv believed the prospect fanciful. And yet the nightmare was real enough: air raid sirens, Russian helicopters flying low against a grey sky in attack formation, the roar of enemy warplanes.

By Friday, as Russian forces approached Kyiv from the north-west, Ukraine responded in two ways. One was by fighting. Its protagonists were soldiers, military veterans, volunteers. Members of the Ukrainian forces tried to hold back a powerful enemy advancing on multiple fronts: from the east and Russia; the south and Crimea; the north and Belarus.

The other, bigger group were civilians fleeing the surging conflict - a great, wheeled caravan that filled the road west out of the city, and continued for dozens of miles. For hours this procession of cars scarcely moved. Drivers emerged to stretch their legs. It was unprecedented: Ukraine's biggest ever jam.

Those without vehicles had to find other options. There were long queues at Kyiv-Pasazhyrskyi railway station. Some trains were cancelled but a few, remarkably, were running, albeit delayed by five or six hours. Military transport took priority, railway staff explained. Buying a ticket was almost impossible in a panicked city of 3 million people.

Some set off on foot, walking along the verge of the E40 road in the early hours of Friday morning, pulling carry-on cases. One departed on a mountain bike. On the day of invasion the Ukrainian government introduced a 10pm-7am curfew. Trains on the Soviet-built Kyiv metro stopped promptly. The underground stations remained open all night, now serving as bomb shelters.

"We left at 5.30am when we heard the first explosions," Vera Ivanovna said, wiping away tears. "I didn't bring any clothes. I took my mother, nine-year-old daughter and sister." Ivanovna said she had been driving for 28 hours, after setting off from her home in Sumy, in north-eastern Ukraine, close to the city of Kharkiv and the Russian border.

Kremlin tanks had now taken over Sumy, she said, after heavy fighting. "My husband is there. He can't leave. There are Russian checkpoints now." She added: "My daughter was due to fly to Egypt. She had packed a bag with a swimsuit in it. We were successful people. We owned a business and an apartment block. Now it's gone."

Ivanovna said she would drop her sister off at the Polish border and stay with friends in the western city of Lviv. The Polish government was allowing women to enter the country without documents or visas. But Ukraine's president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, banned men of conscription age, between 18 and 60, from exiting Ukraine. There were heart-rending farewells.

Along the road out of Kyiv, cars queued in vast curving lines to buy petrol. One driver, Dima, said he had fled his home in the city of Vyshhorod, north of the capital, after seeing Russian helicopters in the sky. "There were 30 of them. They flew over us," he said. The paratroopers on board tried to seize nearby Hostomel airport. What would happen to Kyiv? "It's kaput," he said.

Not everyone shared this view. A Ukrainian T-72 tank and armoured vehicle were stationed about 12 miles outside Kyiv. Other military vehicles trundled towards battle, as civilians streamed out on both sides of the road. There were new checkpoints, new walls, new realities. Soldiers with flashlights checked documents in the dark.

Outside the city of Zhytomyr, police had built an impressive traffic-calming barrier from slabs of local granite. It was the same stone used to build Lenin's mausoleum on Red Square in Moscow - in the country with which Ukraine was now at war. "Putin has turned into Hitler," said Dima Yatsenko, a 35-year-old former lawyer. "This is all about his ambitions. He's a small man like Napoleon."

Yatsenko said Putin had shown his true face after months of pretending to the world he was interested in a diplomatic solution to his grievances over Ukraine and Nato. Yatsenko said he was a little taken aback that Russia's president had embarked on bloody conflict. "We are motivated. They are not. Look at Afghanistan or Iraq. We will resist and defend our territory," he said.

In normal circumstances the long drive west would have been an attractive one. The road cuts through green flashes of pine forest; crows roost in trees overrun with clumps of mistletoe. There are Catholic churches and homesteads with chickens. With so many cars on the road, there were inevitable crashes and the body of a dead dog.

Many of those driving in the darkness were families with small children. Dmitry Vyacheslav - a Kyiv web designer stopping off for petrol at 3am - was travelling with his wife and three children, including the perky Tikon, aged eight months. Vyacheslav held Tikon, dressed in a romper suit, in his arms. "We will try and cross the Romanian border," he said.

The west had acted too slowly to help Ukraine, he added, which now faced extinction as an independent sovereign state. What should happen to Putin? "He should die," Vyacheslav said. His parents were living in the city of Kherson, north of Crimea, which was on the brink of being overrun. The Russian army had made rapid advances, he said gloomily.

The UN estimates about 5 million Ukrainians from a country of 40 million-plus are likely to escape abroad. According to border authorities, 29,000 people entered Poland from Ukraine on Thursday - invasion day. In Romania, more than 10,000 turned up, with another 3,000 going to Slovakia.

It takes six to 12 hours to cross the Polish border. Transport is a growing problem, with taxis hard to find. Petrol stocks are running low. Drivers are only allowed to buy 20 litres each. The road to Medyka, 52 miles from Lviv, was packed with cars. Police directed traffic and relatives hugged loved ones when they arrived on the Polish side.

Vera Ivanovna said she was not sure when - or even if - she would see her husband again. She had friends in Russia, she said, all of them appalled and terrified by Putin's decision to declare war. "The situation is terrible and fantastical. I want to go back to my husband but my mother won't let me."

She added: "I don't understand. Why did Putin do this?"