A six-year-old boy, 800km from the Kyiv home he might never return to, brightens at the mere sound of the word playground, likely the first sign of normalcy he's had in days.
Four family members from Donetsk, in Ukraine's far east, cross the border into Poland after 13 hours in an immigration queue. They have lost everything and the emotion drains out of them. They seem to be thinking not "we're safe" but "we're not going back".
A woman and her two kids crash in the apartment of someone they've never met before, sharing only a few words across the language barrier on the way to a more permanent refuge.
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These are some of the stories shared by Australians living in Poland, doing what little they can to help some of the 1.8 million Ukrainian refugees who have fled to Warsaw and other parts of the country in three weeks of Russia's bloody war.
Roger Scott and Daniel "Rusty" Russell took a minivan full of supplies across the border and took a trip through "pure chaos" the next day with seven refugees onboard to drive to Warsaw.
William Burke was about to put his Warsaw apartment on the market to rent but instead handed it over to Ukrainian mother Irina, her young boy Kiryu and her elderly parents Inna and Valeriy.
And Phil Forbes, amid raising money and gathering supplies, exiled himself to the couch for a night when a Ukrainian family needed somewhere to sleep.
Their stories, and particularly the matter-of-fact way they tell them, cast a light on the incredible human toll Russian President Vladimir Putin's catastrophically protracted invasion is taking, even on those who escape west to safety.
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"There's nothing heroic", about what he's doing, Mr Burke insists, pointing to similar efforts by ordinary people right across Poland, which has opened to its eastern neighbours in recent weeks.
The Australians 9News.com.au spoke to were proud of the welcome the Ukrainians have received but noted the stark difference in the way Afghan arrivals were treated as recently as a few months ago.
The haphazard collection of helpers, which also includes Poles, Ukrainians, Belarusians, Britons, Americans and Canadians, came together as war broke out, but some of the friendships had earlier beginnings.
The Aussies who might now be ringing around to source refugee accommodation, generators, GPS units or knee pads had counted several years of barbecues and footy matches — Mr Forbes, Mr Scott and Mr Russell are all from Melbourne while Mr Burke is from Sydney — before the COVID-19 pandemic hit.
They're all helping but agree Mr Scott and Mr Russell, who've raised more than $60,000 and taken two return trips into Ukraine since the war broke out, not to mention more than half a dozen trips to the border and back, are going above and beyond.
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Their first trip to Lviv together was meant to be relatively simple — drop off a generator and other supplies; pick up seven refugees — quickly turned into a chaotic, curfew-busting midnight journey when they crossed into Ukraine later than expected. Mr Scott said it was capped off by a 13-hour wait at the border.
"When we got across the border, I think just after all that waiting they just had no emotions left," he told 9News.com.au.
"You know, there was just nothing in the tank for them to react.
"I think the emotions, if anything, was somewhat sad because like, I think they crossed over and they were like, well, 'that's f---ing it. We're not going back.'"
The one fighting age man in the van, who was only allowed to leave because he was Egyptian rather than Ukrainian, thought about how he would provide for his family.
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The mother of one of the women on board was still in an underground shelter in Kyiv. No one was happy to be leaving their country.
"I didn't realise just how horrendous everything was until you actually heard it from the source," said Mr Scott, who speaks fluent Russian after 12 years in the country.
"So yeah, but then it just sort of motivated us more to help, keep helping, keep raising money.
"But it's, I definitely didn't realise how bad everything was until I spoke to these people and it's, it's worse than the worst nightmare."
On top of the huge, overarching trauma of fleeing their war-torn homeland, the refugees must continue dealing with the more mundane aspects of day-to-day life.
Irina, the mother staying in Mr Burke's flat, still works six days a week for a Russian bank, not one of the ones under sanctions.
Mr Forbes helped out a mother-of-four with money for books because two of her kids had school the next day.
"This woman's got a lot of guts to go through (with this)," he said, speaking of the family who spent the night in his flat.
"I mean, her country's at war. So, you know, to get through that and to get away from it takes an incredible amount of courage.
"But then to come to a foreign country where you don't speak the language, you know a handful of people and to try and start a life here.
"Whether that's going to be for two or three weeks, three months, the next 15 years, I can't imagine. I can't imagine."
The potential impact on children is terrifying.
UNICEF says kids make up about half of the 3 million Ukrainians who have fled since the invasion began on February 24, mostly for Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, Romania and Moldova.
Across the war's first 20 days, an average of 55 children fled Ukraine every minute.
On top of sheltering the unending flow of refugees, neighbouring countries must now provide mental health care to traumatised kids.
According to the UNHCR, about 1.8 million refugees — roughly the population of the Polish capital of Warsaw — have ended up in Poland.
Among them was 41-year-old Svitlana Bibikova, from the Kyiv region, with her three pre-teen children.
Along the way to the normally sleepy border town of Przemysl, she said, every noise, even the sound of the train braking, made her kids tremble with fear.
Her 11-year-old daughter, Dasha, recalled the first morning back home when she was woken up by the sounds of exploding Russian rockets and mortars and how her "mother said that the war began".
Nadia Chernenko, 33, from the Dnipro region in central Ukraine, said she tried protecting her children by not mentioning the war and telling them that the loud booming sounds "were just firecrackers exploding and that everything will soon go back to normal".
Still, she added, "I am afraid that they have been scarred" for life.
Amid insurmountable numbers, locals and expats across Poland are doing what they can to help.
Mr Burke said the family staying in his apartment, who was so excited two weeks ago by the "normalcy" of having a playground nearby, has "completely changed".
"Colour has gone back to their faces," he said.
Despite their new relative safety and the bloodshed back in Ukraine, they're still holding on to hope of returning home within a month.
- With Associated Press
