British motivational speaker and author Jim Lawless spent the night of 5 October in a shelter in Lviv as Russia launched a massive attack on Ukraine.
The writer came to the city for the Publishers Forum.
"There are children sleeping beside me on our row of hard chairs. Their heads on their mothers' laps. The mothers are not asleep," Lawless shared his experience on Instagram. "The ground is vibrating hard and even in the basement the explosions are intimidatingly loud."
He described how the mothers stared into the distance—which in the narrow basement corridor was just a meter away. "The Russians are very brave, hurling explosives at mothers and children. They wait til nightfall to cover their shame," Lawless wrote.
The attack began at 3:50 am and continued past 7:00 am. Lawless noted that the strike on Lviv occurred precisely when the city was hosting many visitors for its annual Book Forum. "Books scare bullies," he added.
The author emphasized the difference between being a guest and a citizen under fire. "It is not my husband at the front line or in the rehab centre learning how to walk on two prosthetic legs. It is not my child asleep in a corridor with their head on my lap. My child is sleeping safely in the UK. Safe, for as long as Ukrainians defend Europe's borders," he wrote.
Lawless told Suspilne Culture that he came to Ukraine at his own expense. Besides the book festival, he visited the Unbroken rehabilitation center in Lviv and plans to travel to Kyiv. According to the writer, the Ukrainian people "inspire the whole world with their energy, courage, technical ingenuity and political leadership."
His host, Yuliya Yurchenko, left Lviv at 5 pm on 3 October, crossing into Poland at 9 pm to meet him at Przemysl. She queued for two hours to exit Ukraine and another two hours to re-enter. They reached their beds at 3 am on the morning of 4 October. During the attack, she spent the night on her bathroom floor—the safest room in her house—with her young daughter, while staying in constant contact with Lawless to ensure his safety.
Lawless was originally scheduled to visit Ukraine in July, but BookChef publishing house canceled the event due to worsening security conditions. Despite not making the decision himself, he faced criticism and mockery over his book's Ukrainian title "Go Where It's Scary." The title was adapted from the Russian translation, while the original English version is "Taming Tigers: Do Things You Never Thought You Could."
On the night of 5 October, Russian forces attacked Ukraine with 549 aerial weapons, including 496 drones and 53 missiles of various types. Ukrainian forces shot down or suppressed 478 targets.
Lviv Oblast was the primary target. Ivano-Frankivsk, Zaporizhzhia, Chernihiv, Sumy, Kharkiv, Kherson, Odesa and Kirovohrad oblasts also came under attack.
Ten people were injured and five were killed, including 15-year-old Anastasiia and three other members of her family.