Air Raid Season

TRANSCRIPT — VOICE MESSAGES

Oksana Tarasyuk ↔ Daryna Kostenko

Platform: Telegram (voice messages)

Oksana: Kyiv, Ukraine (UTC+2) Daryna: Toronto, Canada (UTC-5)

Period: 6–22 February 2026

[Transcriber’s note: Messages are presented in the order they were received and listened to, which does not always correspond to the order they were sent. Ambient sounds noted where audible. Gaps in the record indicate periods of no communication or messages deemed too fragmentary to transcribe. Timestamps reflect local time of the sender.]

Oksana — 6 February, 21:47 Kyiv time — 1:38

Darynka, hello, hi, sorry, I know I said I would call but I’m at the studio and everything is — okay so they’ve just shown the opening ceremony, San Siro, very beautiful, you know the Italians, they cannot help themselves, and there was a moment with Andrea Bocelli and I cried a little bit which is unprofessional but my mascara survived so we’ll say it didn’t happen. Anyway I’m doing the late wrap-up segment at eleven and I wanted to tell you — the studio bought a new espresso machine. Industrial. It makes a sound like a small aircraft. Okay, I have to go, they’re yelling at me about something. Kiss Denysyk for me.

Daryna — 6 February, 16:02 Toronto time — 2:14

Hi. I watched the opening ceremony too, well, parts of it, Denys kept asking why the people were walking in circles (child’s voice, distant: “Mama, why are they walking?”) — that’s him, he’s been like this all day — anyway I saw the Ukrainian team come out and they looked, I don’t know, small? Not the athletes, the delegation. The camera cut away quickly. Or maybe it didn’t, maybe I was watching a different feed. Tell me about the espresso machine. I want to know the brand, the wattage, the emotional state of the barista.

Oksana — 7 February, 08:13 Kyiv time — 0:52

The barista’s emotional state is “resigned.” His name is Bohdan, he’s twenty-three, he was in Bakhmut, now he makes espresso for journalists. He doesn’t talk about it. He has a tattoo of coordinates on his wrist and I will never ask. Good morning. The biathlon starts tomorrow in Anterselva and I am genuinely excited which feels strange to say.

Oksana — 7 February, 14:30 Kyiv time — 1:12

(Sound of the Повітряна тривога app, followed by a brief pause. Footsteps. A door closing. When the voice resumes, it has a slight echo, as though recorded in a corridor.)

So I’m in the hallway now, which is the designated shelter point for our floor, it’s just a hallway with no windows, and Slavko from the weather desk is here eating a sandwich as though this is completely normal which I suppose it is. I was going to tell you about the schedule for tomorrow — we’re covering the mixed doubles curling (faint voice in the background, male, indistinct) — Slavko says to tell you hello — and also the short track speed skating qualifying rounds. I’ll send you the times if you want to watch along. Though I suppose “along” is generous given the seven-hour gap between us.

Daryna — 7 February, 10:44 Toronto time — 2:31

I heard the alert in your last message. I’m not going to say anything about it because you didn’t say anything about it, so I’m respecting that, except I just said something about it, so. (Child’s voice: “Mama, juice”) — one second, baby — (pause, 12 seconds, sound of a refrigerator door, liquid pouring) — okay. Send me the schedule. Denys and I will watch curling at nine in the morning, which is apparently the kind of mother I’ve become. Is it true about Norway’s pants? Someone at work said they’re wearing special pants again.

Oksana — 8 February, 09:51 Kyiv time — 1:47

Darynka, the pants are REAL. Norway brought back the diamond pants, the red and white and blue argyle ones, they wore them against Sweden and Ramsfjell — the skip — was wearing them with such dignity, such absolute seriousness, like a man who has made a fashion choice and will die on this hill. Then someone told me the pants are a tribute to Thomas Ulsrud, the curler who died, who used to wear them, and then it wasn’t funny anymore, or it was funny in a different way.

Daryna — 8 February, 11:15 Toronto time — 0:48

We watched! Denys loved the pants. He called them “clown pants” which I think Thomas Ulsrud would have appreciated. He asked if the curling stones are heavy and I said very heavy and he said heavier than a car and I said no, and he was disappointed. He wants everything to be heavier than a car. (Pause.) Are you sleeping okay?

Oksana — 8 February, 22:06 Kyiv time — 2:03

Am I sleeping okay. You’re doing it again, Darynka. The diagnostic thing. You parse my messages like a doctor listening to a cough — is her voice higher than yesterday, is she speaking faster, did she pause in the wrong place. The answer is yes, I slept four hours, which is standard, which is fine. I sleep with one ear open and the phone on the pillow with the air raid app at maximum. But I slept. Today we covered the women’s moguls and a Ukrainian skier finished nineteenth, which doesn’t sound impressive but she finished, and afterward in the interview she said, “I am here,” and paused and said it again, “I am here.” I played that clip four times.

Daryna — 8 February, 18:33 Toronto time — 1:24

I’m not parsing you. Or I am, but not — it’s just. I know your voice. I’ve known your voice for twelve years. I can hear when you’re tired and I can hear when you’re tired and pretending not to be and those are different sounds. (Long pause. Sound of traffic, faint horn.) It snowed here today. Denys made a snow angel in the parking lot at daycare and his teacher sent me a photo — he’s grinning, mittens don’t match, behind him a Honda Civic and a recycling bin.

Oksana — 9 February, 12:20 Kyiv time — 0:41

Don’t apologize for snow. Don’t apologize for the Honda Civic. Apologize for the mismatched mittens, those are on you. (Laughter.) Okay I’m going into a production meeting, we’re planning tomorrow’s biathlon coverage. Send me the snow angel photo.

Daryna — 9 February, 07:45 Toronto time — 1:56

(Sound of running water — a tap, dishes.) I sent the photo. Did you see how his hat is crooked? He won’t let me fix it. He says the crooked way is the right way. (Pause.) I woke up at five again. Not the alarm. I just woke up and checked the news and there was a strike on something in Kharkiv, I’m not going to say what because you’ll tell me to stop reading the news at five a.m. But I checked and you hadn’t posted anything and I checked and you hadn’t messaged anyone in our group chat and so I lay there in the dark until you sent that message about the mittens.

Oksana — 9 February, 19:07 Kyiv time — 2:24

The biathlon. Let me tell you about the biathlon, Darynka, because it’s the only thing I want to talk about right now. The mixed relay was today, in Anterselva, in the Alps, and the snow — at altitude the snow has this clarity, like glass — and our team was in it. Dmytro ran the second leg, hit four out of five on prone and four out of five on standing, which if you don’t know biathlon (laughing) — it means you ski and your heart is going one-eighty and then you stop and become completely still and shoot at targets the size of a fist. Smaller. He hit eight out of ten, and I was standing in the booth and (pause) I realized I was holding my breath while he was shooting. The team finished seventh.

Daryna — 9 February, 14:23 Toronto time — 0:38

Seventh! I’m going to write that on a sticky note and put it on the fridge next to Denys’s drawing of a helicopter that might also be a dog.

Daryna — 9 February, 21:14 Toronto time — 1:42

I can’t sleep. (Voice low, almost whispering.) Denys is asleep. I’m in the kitchen with the laptop open watching the replay of the biathlon and I’m trying to hold my breath when the shooter holds his breath but I keep forgetting to breathe again. (Pause.) The commentator on CBC called it a “solid result for Ukraine” and I — (Sound of a chair scraping, a long exhale.) I’m going to bed. Good night. Well, good morning to you, I guess.

Oksana — 10 February, 07:38 Kyiv time — 1:03

Good morning from your future. Today it’s the women’s giant slalom, which I won’t be covering because I’ve been reassigned to studio hosting for the afternoon block. This means I sit at a desk and introduce segments and look composed. I am very good at looking composed, Darynka. My greatest athletic achievement. (Sound of the espresso machine, loud, mechanical.) Bohdan says good morning. He didn’t actually say that, he nodded, but I’m translating.

Oksana — 10 February, 15:12 Kyiv time — 0:34

(Sound of the Повітряна тривога app. The voice is calm, almost bored.) Hallway again. Second time today. Slavko has graduated from sandwiches to soup, which shows either optimism or better meal planning. I’ll record the rest of this message when we get the all-clear.

Oksana — 10 February, 15:49 Kyiv time — 1:18

Okay, all-clear. Where was I. Right — so the figure skating short program is tomorrow and I’ve been reading about the Italian pair, they’re siblings, and the choreography involves a lift where she’s basically horizontal four feet in the air and he’s holding her with one hand and they’re spinning and the whole time their faces show no fear, zero, and I keep thinking about that. The craft of showing no fear. (Brief pause.) Sorry, that went somewhere I didn’t intend. What did Denys have for lunch?

Daryna — 10 February, 12:17 Toronto time — 2:48

He had pasta with butter and exactly seven peas because he counted them and rejected the eighth pea on moral grounds he did not explain. (Pause.) Oksana, I listened to both messages from today and the gap between them — thirty-seven minutes — I know what that gap was. (Sound of a television, faint — a sports broadcast in English.) I’ve been keeping the CBC coverage on in the background. All day. Even when Denys is at daycare. (Child’s voice, from another room: “Mama? Mama, are the people on the TV real?”) (Long silence — eight seconds.) I have to go.

Oksana — 11 February, 09:14 Kyiv time — 0:27

Tell me what Denys said. You ended the message and I know something happened.

Daryna — 10 February, 23:08 Toronto time — 3:12

(Voice unsteady, with an echo — a bathroom.) Okay. Okay, so Denys — you heard him in the message, he asked if the people on the TV are real. He asked it the way he asks everything, casually, like it’s the same question as “can I have more crackers,” and I — (sharp breath) — I said yes, they’re real, and he said but they’re inside the TV, and I said no, they’re in a place called Italy, and he said like how Tato is in a place called work, and I said yes, sort of like that, and then he said are the people in the other show real too, the one you watch at night, and I said what other show, and he said the one with the buildings that fall down, Oksana, he’s seen me watching the news, he’s seen — (pause, running water — a tap turned on and off) — he’s seen the footage, he thinks it’s the same as cartoons, it’s all the same screen, and I can’t — the screen doesn’t tell you which is which. (Laughing, but the laugh descends into something lower.) I left the room. I’m in the bathroom. He’s watching something about trucks. I’m sitting on the edge of the bathtub and talking to you because you’re the only person who would understand why this question is the worst thing he could have asked me.

Oksana — 11 February, 11:40 Kyiv time — 1:44

Darynka. (Long pause.) I don’t have an answer for the screen question. But let me tell you about Heraskevych, the skeleton racer — you’ve heard? They disqualified him. He had a helmet with pictures of athletes who were killed — Perehudova, Ischenko, Loginov, others — and the IOC said it was political propaganda. A helmet with faces of dead people is propaganda. He said, “Their voice is so loud that the IOC is afraid of them,” which is the only sentence from these Olympics I will remember in ten years. Zelenskyy gave him the Order of Liberty — (sound of something metallic, a cup set down) — a medal for a man denied the chance to compete for a medal.

Daryna — 11 February, 08:52 Toronto time — 0:53

I read about Heraskevych this morning. At work. I read it at my desk and I went to the bathroom and I stood there for a while. A colleague asked if I was okay and I said I was fine and she said “you look like you’ve seen something.” (Pause.) Send me more about the biathlon. I need the biathlon.

Oksana — 12 February, 07:55 Kyiv time — 1:33

More about the biathlon! The women’s individual is today, fifteen kilometers, and I have been studying the course profile like a person with a hobby, which I suppose this is. Anastasiya is in the third start group and she’s been inconsistent, which is a polite word for what inconsistency looks like, which is: some days the body listens and some days it remembers something the mind has put away. (Sound of a door, voices in the background — a busy office.) Have to go. Kiss the pea-rejecting child.

Daryna — 12 February, 09:30 Toronto time — 0:41

He rejected four peas today. His standards are escalating. I’m choosing to view this as character development. (Pause.) I’ll watch Anastasiya. I’ll hold my breath.

Oksana — 13 February, 20:15 Kyiv time — 2:37

Darynka. (Voice lower than usual.) I haven’t sent you anything today and I know you noticed. I’m sorry. It was a long day. Something hit something in the Obolon district and the power went out in the studio for forty minutes and we broadcast from laptops, from phones, Slavko was holding a ring light like a man at a birthday party, and I did a segment about the men’s downhill results while sitting on the floor of the backup room because the ceiling tiles in the main studio — it doesn’t matter. Yuriy missed a penalty in the biathlon relay and I described it to the camera while someone in the hallway was yelling about water pressure and the generator was making a sound like a sick animal and I was completely professional, Darynka, I was — (the voice shifts, tightens, then deliberately relaxes) — I was fine. Tell me what the snow looks like right now.

Daryna — 13 February, 15:48 Toronto time — 1:31

The snow looks like snow. (Pause.) That’s a useless answer. Okay. The snow looks like — this morning it was on all the car roofs in the parking lot and by noon it had slid halfway off so every car looked like it was wearing a hat at an angle, like Denys, and by three o’clock the sun came out and the gutters were running and there was that sound, you know the sound, water going somewhere it’s supposed to go. (Long pause.) The men’s super-G is tomorrow. Talk to me about the men’s super-G.

Oksana — 14 February, 08:04 Kyiv time — 1:12

Happy Valentine’s Day, Darynka, the most meaningless holiday except here they’re selling roses at the metro station, which is also a bomb shelter, which means you can buy your wife flowers at the same location where you might spend the night on the platform if things get bad. The super-G is at thirteen hundred local time which is — seven a.m. for you? Will Denys watch? He should watch. Explain to him that a man is going to ski down a mountain at one hundred and forty kilometers per hour and then stand at the bottom and wait for a number to appear. That’s the whole sport.

Daryna — 14 February, 07:22 Toronto time — 0:57

We’re watching. Denys is in his pajamas eating cereal. He asked if the skier is cold and I said probably not because he’s going so fast and Denys said “Fast makes you warm?” and just nodded, like that settled something for him. (Sound of a spoon against a bowl.) Happy Valentine’s Day. I sent you a package last week, it should arrive — well. I sent it. It might arrive.

Oksana — 14 February, 23:41 Kyiv time — 0:38

(Voice very quiet, almost a whisper.) I’m in bed. The app has been quiet for six hours, which means nothing, which means either nothing is coming or something is coming and hasn’t come yet. I used to be able to sleep through the quiet. (Pause.) Good night from the future.

Daryna — 15 February, 06:30 Toronto time — 2:02

(Whispering.) Denys is still asleep. I’m in the kitchen. (Pause.) When I left in 2019 — when we left — it was September and the apartment was full of boxes and my mother said, “You’ll be back in two years” and I said yes, two years, and we both knew. And now it’s 2026 and my mother hasn’t been here because the visa situation is — it doesn’t matter. And Denys has never met his cousins in person. He’s seen them on video calls. He knows Taras is older and Anya is younger. But he’s never been in a room with them. (Voice tightens.) He doesn’t know what it is to be in a room with someone. And I — (pause) — I am the person who chose this for him. I chose the Honda Civic and the mismatched mittens and the snow angels in the daycare parking lot. And you are the person who chose to stay, or didn’t choose, or — I know it’s more complicated than that. But from here, Oksana, from the kitchen at six-thirty in the morning, it feels like I sleep because you don’t. I know that’s not how it works. I know one person’s safety isn’t literally — (sharp inhale) — but it feels that way.

Oksana — 15 February, 16:23 Kyiv time — 1:54

Darynka. Stop. (Firm, but not unkind.) You don’t owe me anything. You owe Denys the mismatched mittens and the Honda Civic and the parking lot. That’s the debt you’re paying and it’s the right debt. Don’t — listen, there are people here who left and came back, and people who left and stayed, and people who never left, and none of us — none of us — has the moral high ground. The moral high ground was bombed in March 2022. What’s left is just the ground. (Pause.) Today was good. The short track was beautiful. There’s a Korean skater, I don’t remember the name, who takes corners like a person who has never been afraid of a wall. (Sound of a kettle.) I’m making tea. The power has been stable for two days, which means I can boil water with electricity like a civilized person. Boiled water from the wall.

Daryna — 15 February, 12:08 Toronto time — 0:33

Boiled water from the wall. I am going to embroider that on a pillow. (Laughing.) Denys says he wants to be a curling person when he grows up. Not a curler. A curling person. I am fully supportive of this career path.

Oksana — 16 February, 10:30 Kyiv time — 2:46

The biathlon, Darynka, the biathlon again. The women’s twelve-and-a-half kilometer mass start is today and Anastasiya is in it and I’ve been reading about her all morning instead of doing my actual job. She grew up in Sumy, near the border, and her family relocated three times during the first year and she kept training, she trained on roller skis on a road outside Lviv while the rest of the team had scattered and she just — kept going. (Sound of the Повітряна тривога app — brief, then muted.) (Pause — four seconds.) That’s the third one today. I don’t even go to the hallway anymore for the short ones. I just mute the app and. (Pause.) Fourteen-thirty Anterselva time. One-thirty for you. Watch it.

Daryna — 16 February, 09:17 Toronto time — 1:20

I’ll watch. (Pause.) You said you don’t go to the hallway anymore for the short ones. What’s a short one? How do you know which ones are short? (Pause.) I know there’s a logic to it, a frequency — I know you’ve learned to read them the way I’ve learned to read the weather forecast. And that learning is the thing that separates us, Oksana. Not the distance. The learning. We’re talking about the same biathlon but we’re not the same audience. (Pause.) One-thirty. I’ll be there.

Daryna — 16 February, 14:51 Toronto time — 0:29

She hit nine out of ten. Anastasiya. She hit nine out of ten and finished eleventh and I am sitting on my couch with tears running down my face and Denys is looking at me like I’ve lost my mind. Eleventh, Oksana. She was eleventh.

Oksana — 17 February, 00:02 Kyiv time — 0:43

(Voice hoarse.) I know. I was in the booth. I described every shot to the camera and my voice was normal and professional and when the broadcast ended I sat in the chair for ten minutes and didn’t move.

Oksana — 18 February, 13:45 Kyiv time — 1:56

I need to tell you something funny because I’ve been too serious and you’re going to think I’m falling apart, which I’m not, I’m just tired the way everyone here is tired, the kind of tired you don’t fix with sleep. So — we have a segment called “Olympic Kitchen” where we show what athletes eat, a puff piece, and today the footage showed this enormous buffet — pasta station, sushi station, a person in a white hat making crepes — and I looked at my lunch, which was a roll with cheese from the vending machine because the cafeteria is still closed from last week, and I said on air, “The athletes are eating well, and so are we, in our own way, which is the way of the vending machine,” and the producer was furious but the cameraman was laughing and I could see his shoulders shaking behind the monitor. (Laughing.) I am going to get fired for being funny during the Olympics.

Daryna — 18 February, 08:32 Toronto time — 1:07

You will not get fired. (Pause.) I showed Denys a picture of the Olympic Village dining hall and he said “Do they have chicken nuggets” and I said I don’t know and he said (imitating a child’s voice) “If they don’t have chicken nuggets it’s not a real restaurant.” (Pause.) Your mother called me yesterday. She said the visa appointment got moved again. She asked me to tell you because she said you don’t answer her calls during the Olympics. Please call her.

Oksana — 18 February, 21:30 Kyiv time — 0:49

I know about the visa. I know. I’ll call her tomorrow. (Pause.) I don’t not answer her calls. I miss them. I’m in the studio or in the hallway or in the backup room or on a call with the federation and by the time I look at the phone it’s midnight. I’ll call her.

Daryna — 19 February, 06:15 Toronto time — 2:19

(Whispering again — early morning.) I had a dream. I dreamed I was in the studio with you and we were both broadcasting and the cameras were on and we were describing the ice hockey semifinal except we weren’t describing the game, we were describing each other, narrating each other’s gestures to the audience, and the audience was my son, just Denys, sitting in a living room in Toronto watching us describe each other on the screen, and he said “Are they real?” and in the dream I turned to the camera and said “I don’t know.” (Pause.) The figure skating free program is today. I’ll watch it with Denys. He likes the spinning. He calls it “the round part.” The skating is “the slide part,” the jumps are “the up part,” the spins are “the round part.”

Oksana — 19 February, 17:02 Kyiv time — 1:34

The round part! Darynka, I’m going to describe the pairs free skate and say “and now the round part” and the producer will kill me and I will die happy. (Sound of voices, someone calling her name — “Oksana! Tri khvylyny!”) — three minutes, I have to go. The ice hockey quarterfinals are tonight. Finland versus somebody. I’ll message you after.

Daryna — 19 February, 20:45 Toronto time — 0:39

Denys watched the figure skating and during a quad jump he stood up on the couch and jumped and landed on the cushion and said “I did the up part.” I don’t have anything else to report. I just needed you to know that happened.

Oksana — 20 February, 09:15 Kyiv time — 2:08

(Tired. Not the performing-normalcy tired — a different register, flatter.) I worked until two a.m. The hockey went long and then there was an alert at midnight and we stayed in the hallway for an hour and a half this time, and Slavko had no soup and no sandwich, just his phone and the glow of it on his face, and Bohdan was sitting against the wall and he was completely quiet and then he said, “I used to count them.” And nobody asked what he used to count. And then the all-clear came and I finished the segment about the hockey quarterfinals and my voice was the same. (Long pause.) I’m very tired, Darynka. Not the structural tired. The other kind.

Daryna — 20 February, 07:00 Toronto time — 1:45

I heard it. (Long pause.) Denys’s cousin Taras had a birthday yesterday. He turned eight. My sister-in-law sent a video — the party, in the apartment in Dnipro, small, just the family, a cake with eight candles — and in the video you can hear (pause) — you can hear, very faintly, a siren, and nobody in the video reacts to it. The children don’t react. The adults don’t react. The candles are lit and the siren is there and Taras blows out the candles and everyone claps and the siren is still there and they are cutting the cake. I watched this video six times.

Oksana — 20 February, 22:30 Kyiv time — 1:11

(Pause.) Taras is eight. Tell him happy birthday from his aunt who will bring him something from the studio — we have branded Olympic mugs, very ugly, he’ll love them. (Sound of the app — quick, cut off immediately.) (Pause.) Tomorrow is the last full day of competition. The closing ceremony is on the twenty-second, Sunday. Sixteen days.

Daryna — 21 February, 11:30 Toronto time — 1:16

Denys asked this morning if the Olympics are ending and I said yes, on Sunday, and he said “Then what will we watch?” and I said regular things, cartoons, whatever, and he said, “But what will Mama’s friend talk about?” and I — (laughing) — he thinks you only exist during the Olympics. He thinks you’re seasonal. (Pause.) That’s terrible. Forget I said that. I didn’t mean seasonal like.

Oksana — 21 February, 22:14 Kyiv time — 1:37

I like it. Air raid season. Like it’s a weather pattern. Like you can check the forecast: highs of twelve, chance of shelling, forty percent probability of cancelled broadcasts. (Pause.) The last day was today, really. Tomorrow is just the closing ceremony. I filed my last competitive segment — the cross-country fifty-kilometer mass start, which is just people skiing for a very long time and suffering beautifully. Norway won. Our man finished nineteenth.

Daryna — 21 February, 18:50 Toronto time — 0:29

Nineteenth. (Pause.) I was watching from the couch with Denys asleep on my lap.

Oksana — 22 February, 19:30 Kyiv time — 2:23

Darynka. The closing ceremony. They held it in Verona, at the Arena, the Roman amphitheater, and the music was — it was the kind of music that wants you to feel something general, something about the human spirit, and I did feel something but it wasn’t general. (Pause.) They sang something in Italian. I don’t speak Italian but the melody climbed and held a note at the top and came down. (Sound of the app — then silence, no reaction.) And now the flag is coming down and the athletes are hugging and someone is crying and tomorrow will be Monday and the studio will still be here and I will still be here and the app will still be on my phone.

Daryna — 22 February, 14:12 Toronto time — 1:04

I watched. Denys was napping. I watched it alone. The arena in Verona — it looked like a ruin that had decided to be useful again. Thousands of years of stones and people inside them waving flags for countries that didn’t exist when the stones were cut. (Pause.) The CBC commentator said “And so the flame is extinguished” and I turned off the television and the apartment was very quiet.

Oksana — 22 February, 22:47 Kyiv time — 0:51

I’ll call you tomorrow about your mother’s visa. The appointment was moved to the fourteenth of March and there’s a document she needs — I can’t remember the name, something with an apostille — I’ll send you the details. (Pause.) Good night, Darynka.

Daryna — 22 February, 16:53 Toronto time — 0:32

Denys woke up from his nap and asked if the Olympics are over and I said yes and he said “But the people are still there, right? In the TV?” (Pause.) Talk tomorrow.

[Transcriber’s note: The exchange continued. The messages that follow concern visa paperwork, a recipe for varenyky that Daryna’s mother requested, the price of heating oil in Kyiv, a video of Denys attempting to sweep the kitchen floor with a hockey stick, and the ongoing results of the biathlon World Cup season. They are not included here.]