"The problem is the distance to the frontline – it's too short for adequate reaction time. Often the air raid sirens sound at the same time the first explosions are happening" – Lieutenant Captain Dmytro Pletenchuk, Public Affairs Office, Mykolaiv Governate

Central Mykolaiv residents are being warned: A major battle looms between Ukraine and Russia in southern Ukraine. A strategic front will be Kherson, a few dozen kilometers away. 

To best safeguard against imminent danger, residents still living in Mykolaiv are being advised to get out of the city. 

"Where exactly are we supposed to go?" central district community members ask. "Out to live in the fields?" 

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One five-family community living in a hutong-style colony of single-story homes built before the 1917 Russian revolution. The dwellings, adjoined by a shared courtyard, have been hit twice by Russian missile and rocket blasts over the past six months.

"There's no point in renovating anything," Irina sighs as she navigates around the broken glass and rubble littering her living room. "We may get hit again."

Irina has lived in her house since she was seven. She and her husband Viktor weren't at home when the blast concussion shattered windows and tore holes through their thatched roof.

"When it rains, it rains right into my living room," she says.

Residents who remain in Mykolaiv say "staying safe" is hit or miss, and wholly dependent on where ordnance falls. Popular air raid alert app My Alarm Ukraine sends users warnings when sirens sound: "Go to a shelter now!" 

But many Ukrainians don't have built-in bomb shelters and don't know where the closest public safe space is located. Others say public shelters are often locked, uninhabitable or too distant. Viktor and Irina's closest shelter is a kilometer away. 

Taped to one Mykolaiv public bomb shelter entrance, a list of other shelter addresses reveals 79 bomb basements for all of Mykolaiv. Assuming all are open and habitable, that averages out to 2,500 people per shelter – an accommodation impossibility considering shelter sizes.

Ideally, shelters are built underground with fortified concrete walls designed to withstand high-caliber munitions impacts. Multiple exits safeguard against entrapment if fallen rubble blocks a passageway. But the ideal isn't the standard.

"Too many people I know rely on running to their underground garages because that's their only option," Mykolaiv resident Andriy says. "They don't understand that if the top floors collapse, it'll be a house of cards and they'll be at the bottom of the heap."