Boom! The explosion was so loud that I heard window frames pressed in with a cracking sound. I jumped out of bed, my heart pounding fast and my mouth swearing. A thick wall facing my office offers some protection, so I moved away from the windows closer to that wall, expecting more explosions to follow. But it was all for now. It is 5 am and Ukrainian air defense just intercepted a 9M727 Iskander-K cruise missile low over southern parts of Kyiv.

When an air raid alert triggered on my phone at 4:50 AM, I kept sleeping. I also ignored an increased thread alert buzzed at 4:52 AM warning about an imminent strike.

But you can’t ignore an explosion. I was instantly up and fully awake. Talking about a super fast and decisive alarm clock. You can’t snooze this one! There is no need for a knocker-up person when you have a crazy neighbor regularly launching missiles at you early in the morning.

Everything is fine. The missile is intercepted, the damage is minimal and nobody has died from this attack.

A thundering beginning of a new day.