Separated families and manmade checkpoints: What it's like to leave Kyiv amid the Russian invasion

• Words by Foreign Producer Natasha Tierney

When driving through the empty streets of Kyiv on Monday morning, the only people outdoors were standing in long queues for the supermarket. As the weekend's 39-hour curfew lifted for the day, those choosing to stay in their city stocked up on what they could as they prepared for the unknown ahead. Like many Ukrainians from Kyiv and across the country - especially the east where much of the Russian offensive has been concentrated so far - we were driving west to the city of Lviv, with the hopes of crossing through the Polish border. In a convoy of journalists with experienced local fixers, drivers, and security, we were clearly the lucky ones. Most embarking on the journey have had little time to say their goodbyes, or to pack the few belongings they can fit in the car or onto packed trains. Their journey is made significantly longer and more difficult by the numerous military checkpoints now along every stretch of road.

As we passed through the beautiful rural landscape outside of Kyiv, it was clear just how much ordinary citizens have been mobilised by this war. While the major towns and cities have mainly the Ukrainian army or reserves manning each checkpoint, smaller towns and villages have built their own.

Local men stand on guard, carrying guns handed out to them by the government. Others dig trenches along the sides of the roads, preparing for a battle that hasn't reached them yet, and women set up coffee and hot food stands to keep everyone warm in the sub zero temperatures.

The goal of these checkpoints is to catch so-called Russian "saboteurs" heading into or out of the main cities. Stories are rife of Russian soldiers in plain clothes or even Ukrainian uniform, carrying out attacks and marking up buildings for air strikes. Everyone is on high alert. At each checkpoint we showed our passports and press IDs, and were told not to be seen using our phones. Our local fixer had advised us to delete our social media, after reports of journalists getting in trouble for having downloaded content related to Russia.

Even once out in the relative safety of west Ukraine, these rigorous checkpoints remain in place, with long queues of traffic pushing through to reach the city of Lviv before its 10pm curfew. The very few petrol stations still open and running, are overwhelmed with lines of cars. We chose to cross the border in the morning at Krakovets, and were lucky to be dropped as near to the crossing itself as we could be. Ukrainian men aged between 18 and 60 are prohibited from leaving the country in case they're called up to fight, but plenty still drive their families as close as they can, before leaving women and children to complete the walk over on foot. Many sit queuing in cars overnight, others are brought from Lviv by bus and must stand and wait in line.

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Those crossing are overwhelmingly young mothers and children, with as much as they can crammed into buggies as they try to keep little ones calm in the long queues. The Ukrainian guards help everyone carry their bags, impressively calm and friendly as they manage a system that has had to be created in the space of just days.

But the faces of those leaving are from all over the world too. Behind us in the queue were two doctors, originally from Iraq, who had been living in Kyiv since 2010. Saad now works as a radiologist in the hospital there.

"Ukraine is my heart", he told us. "I can't believe this has happened here".

On the other side of the queue in Poland, we spoke to an elderly lady, travelling on her own. With her, on a scrap of paper, the name of the town she was hoping to reach - about two hours from the border.

In broken English she asked if we could look up the journey on our phones for her, so she could work out how much further she now had to go.

"Not far," she smiled.