Ukrainian father and children’s book author Volodymyr Vakulenko took notes as Russian forces rolled into his Kapytolivka village in eastern Ukraine. When he knew they would take him away, he buried his journal in his backyard.

Charlotte Higgins, writing for The Guardian, put together as much of the story as can be known, working with another Ukranian author, Victoria Amelina.

“I never thought that my home village would become the epicentre of the rashist occupation,” wrote Vakulenko in the opening paragraphs of his diary. The word “rashist” is a now widespread Ukrainian portmanteau, a combination of “Russian” and “fascist”, not to be given the dignity of an initial capital. “For me, with my patriotic, pro-Ukrainian views, it was extremely dangerous to find myself surrounded by the enemy.” But, he wrote, he had little choice: moving his son seemed impossible. He added: “You can get used to anything; what matters is what sort of person you are left at the end of it.”

“The manuscript is now in the Kharkiv Literary Museum, and the text of the diary has been recently published in Ukraine, with a foreword by Amelina.”