Ukraine war: No sleep in Ukraine’s relentlessly bombed city

The first night is always the hardest in Mykolaiv. Sleep is near impossible in a Ukrainian city that has been under almost constant Russian bombardment since the start of the war in February.

Your mind is either racing - frantically trying to work out how close the latest explosion was, whether it was a missile or a rocket, a one-off or part of a salvo - or wondering how long it might be before the windows shudder again and the screaming blare of the air raid siren sounds.

But if visitors like me, on my third trip to the city since the war began, find the long nights challenging, how do local people - who reckon they have had just 20 or so quiet nights since the war began - possibly cope?

"Sleep? Not much," said the manager of our hotel one morning last week. She had seemed irrepressibly energetic in March, racing past the boarded-up windows to show guests the makeshift bomb shelter in the cellar.

But now her face betrayed the exhaustion that appears to be overwhelming much of Mykolaiv.

"I don't have my own cellar at home. It's flooded. So, we've nowhere to hide. We just lie there in the dark. Last night the explosions were the closest yet - a couple of blocks away," she said.