I heard the sound over the loudspeaker. It was faint at first. Familiar yet distant. Was it part of a dream, I thought to myself.

It only took a few seconds to realize exactly what it was - another air raid siren going off in Ukraine.

A look at my mobile phone told me it was 01:32 a.m. "Head to the nearest shelter," came the recorded voice behind the public announcement. If it's a bomb shelter you're after, head to the one in the historic church nearby, the male voice added.

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Life in a temporary Kyiv air raid shelter

It's the fifth time in the space of 24 hours that the siren has gone off in Lviv, designed to warn people of a possible aerial attack. The frequency of the sirens has risen here in recent days but down in the bunkers, it's anyone's guess why the alert has been activated or how long it'll be before we're allowed to leave.

You'd be surprised how quickly people get used to the formalities of life under war. This is now a daily occurrence for millions of civilians in Europe's second largest nation.

The west of the country has so far been spared the devastation seen further east, where Russian aerial bombardment has flattened parts of cities like Kharkiv or down south in Mariupol, where residents say continuous shelling has left them cut off, without water, food or electricity.

Moscow claims it's not targeting civilians at all, but as each hour passes, the images and videos we receive here on local social media groups paint a very different picture.

More than a week since the Russian military operation started, the death toll is clearly rising, for military forces on both sides, and for civilians. 

Late on Wednesday, the UN said it had recorded 227 civilian deaths since the conflict began, but the real figure is thought to be much higher. 

After the second round of talks on Thursday afternoon in Belarus, Ukraine and Russia agreed to create humanitarian corridors to evacuate civilians but there was no breakthrough on an immediate ceasefire. 

With the fighting continuing to escalate, any hope of respite for Ukrainians seems a distant hope.

_{Cover image: /REUTERS/Pavlo Palamarchuk}