Hardened by the scars of war, Kiev pushes on as Russia attacks

By Dan Peleschuk

KIEV (Reuters) – As rockets streaked across the Kiev sky in mid-February, a group of high school students sat against the walls of a subway station, doodling in notebooks and concentrating on instructions from their teacher Olena.

To avoid having the class disrupted by another Russian attack, she had quickly moved her class underground when the air raid sirens sounded.

“We teach math, biology, chemistry – all on the usual schedule,” Olena, who declined to give her last name, told Reuters.

These and similar signs of calm resilience – be it the overcrowded pubs despite the threat of rocket and drone attacks or the city tours that have adapted the city tours to the dictates of the war – are increasingly common in the Ukrainian capital.

Almost a year after it began, Russia’s invasion has turned life upside down but also rallied a nation.

In the days following the February 24 attack, much of the city of around 3 million hid indoors or underground as the Ukrainian army fought Russian troops on land and in the air.

Tens of thousands others fled down congested highways and onto train platforms.

“Those first few days were the hardest,” said subway worker Tamara Chayalo, who helped transform the system into a sprawling network of emergency shelters. “Everyone was worried.”

She said she hadn’t gone home for three weeks.

Ukraine forced a Russian withdrawal, but the city has come under fire again since last fall, when missiles began raining down on infrastructure and other civilian targets. Part of what Kiev is saying is a campaign by the Kremlin to break the will of Ukrainians.

Russia denies attacking civilians and says its attacks are aimed at weakening Ukraine’s military.

Amid the wailing of air raid sirens and the hum of generators, residents have learned to keep going through power outages that are plunging entire neighborhoods into darkness.

Kyiv HAS “Grown Muscles”

For city guide Yulia Bevzenko and her mostly Ukrainian clients, touring the city’s architectural treasures is a way to keep going in extraordinary circumstances.

On a snowy Sunday in early February, her group admired ornate Tsarist-era buildings near a city-centre park, where a missile attack on October 10 marked the start of Russia’s campaign of almost weekly attacks.

Apart from a few boarded up windows, there is little evidence of damage and the playground where the rocket landed has been restored.

“Kiev was always about…enjoyment, a sense of leisure,” said tour participant Svitlana Semenets, 56. “But it’s got muscles, it’s a bit armored.”

Bevzenko also tailored her tours to include bomb shelters and small talk with customers, which — especially after one tragic development — was tactfully tweaked to account for possible mood swings.

Your business is booming. Last year she performed 175 tours after resuming in April. The collective logic is a question of “if not now, when?” she says.

“PEOPLE WANT TO LIVE”

This thirst for normality is also a feature of Kiev’s nightlife, where revelers flirt with the risk of attacks and an 11pm curfew to enjoy cocktails and concerts.

“People want to live, they want to smile, they want to be happy,” says Daria Kryzh, co-owner of the bar and entertainment venue Squat 17b. “Russia will never succeed in taking that away from us.”

Events there have also changed with the times: entrance fees have been replaced by donations to the military, which have already exceeded $100,000, and performances and exhibitions are often associated with the war.

Squat 17b’s patrons also helped repair the windows of a neighboring museum that were blown off in the Oct. 10 attack.

Kryzh, 35, said the war produced a collective strength.

“Everyone has their own little list: how have I changed, how have the people around me changed and what can I do to make things better and we win faster?” she said.

“These new values ​​have emerged that were never apparent before.”

UNCERTAINTY AHEAD

Metro worker Chayalo said the common spirit emerges during airstrikes when many residents go underground. “When people come with young children, other passengers help take care of them,” she said.

Such unity may well be needed as Ukraine appears to be heading for a protracted war marked by attrition battles such as the battle for the eastern city of Bakhmut and Russia’s relentless bombardment of Ukraine’s infrastructure.

Meanwhile, media reports focus on an expected new Russian offensive, while posters constantly remind Ukrainians of their troops’ casualties.

On the playground where the October rocket fell, Kseniya Bulhakova happily plays with her son.

But the fear of another strike is ever-present, and Ukrainian mothers like her, said the 32-year-old, share a common thought: “Our children won’t be safe until we win.”

(Reporting by Dan Peleschuk, Yurii Kovalenko, and Viacheslav Ratynskyi; Additional reporting by Andrii Pryimachenko; Editing by Mike Collett-White and John Stonestreet)

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