Yuliia Iziumova's quiet Tuesday night in Lincoln was shattered by a text message.
For days and weeks, the threat of a Russian invasion of her home country of Ukraine had been an escalating source of tension, Iziumova said, even as she held out hope that such an act could be avoided.
Looking at her phone, Iziumova said the tension had finally broken.
"Things have gotten really bad," her mother texted from Odessa, a port city in southern Ukraine. "I can hear explosions."
It was shortly after 5 a.m. in the eastern European country, now under assault by Russian troops, armored vehicles and fighter jets.
"My initial reaction was 'What does that mean? What do I do?'" said Iziumova, a junior at Nebraska Wesleyan University studying communications and integrated data science.
She called her mother, who told her it was difficult to tell how close the explosions were, or whether it was the Russians firing on the city of nearly 1 million people on the Black Sea, or Ukranian defenders trying to repel their advances.
The initial conversation was brief, Iziumova said. She didn't want to distract her mother as the situation grew more dire, and the window to act was closing.
Along with her host family in Lincoln, Iziumova said she convinced her mother to leave the city and make for the neighboring country of Moldova while she still could.
"It was really hard to have that conversation," Iziumova said. "Nobody wants to admit this is real. Everyone wanted to believe the war would not happen. Preparing was almost a way of admitting things might get bad."
Her mother left for Moldova the next day, Thursday night in the U.S.: "It was the hardest night of my life," Iziumova said.
The drive typically takes 3 hours, she said, but news reports said it was taking fleeing Ukrainians as long as 8 hours to get across the border.
"I couldn't sleep not knowing where she was," Iziumova said. We didn't make a plan of how to connect, or if I don't hear from her who I talk to. All of the decisions were made so quickly."
Iziumova said her mother had made it to Moldova, picking up another passenger — a neighbor she had never met, it turns out — along the way. Both were safe.
Meanwhile, Iziumova's father opted to hunker down in Chornomorsk, her hometown, a city of nearly 60,000 on the Black Sea about an hour to the southwest of Odessa, along with her grandparents, an uncle and two younger cousins.
The international student, who first came to Lincoln through the Future Leaders Exchange, a cultural program between the U.S. State Department and post-Soviet countries, said she has been glued to Ukrainian news stations since the invasion began.
Iziumova, 20, was too young to comprehend the start of Russia's latest aggression toward Ukraine in 2014, when the country's Kremlin-backed leader was forced out following violent protests in Kyiv, the capital.
She said she remembers hearing about the conflict, and was vaguely aware of people who had fled eastern regions of Ukraine where Russian-backed separatists had taken control.
The current crisis has been "scary and surreal," she said. Ukrainian news agencies have reported thousands of deaths — Ukrainians "defending their land, defending their families, defending their country."
Iziumova, who has not been home since 2019, said Ukraine did not ask for the war, and she's concerned about what the future could hold if a peaceful resolution is not reached soon.
Even in that there is uncertainty.
"When I go back, the streets that I'm familiar with might look different," she said. "They might not belong to the same country."
But, while she watches with equal parts shock and horror, Iziumova maintains her optimism.
She's never seen Ukraine so united, and believes the government has been managing the crisis professionally and strategically: "We are a small country, but we are mighty and I believe in humanity. I believe this can be over soon."
The support shown from the U.S. and other European countries has also been a boost, she said, as well as the messages of love and concern she's received from friends in Lincoln and around the world.
Iziumova hopes the conflict can quickly be resolved and provide an opportunity for her Lincoln host family to meet her Ukrainian family before she graduates from NWU next year.
"We're all in the same position where we don't know what tomorrow is going to bring, so being an optimist is the best thing I can do."
Yuliia Iziumova, a junior at Nebraska Wesleyan University, is from Chornomorsk, Ukraine. She is wearing a traditional Ukrainian shirt vyshivanka, or embroidered shirt.