Letter from Kyiv: I marvel at how people deal with daily life under Putin’s cruel air war
Letter from Kyiv: I marvel at how people deal with daily life under Putin’s cruel air war
Letter from Kyiv - One evening, as I strolled home from dinner, the city seemed suspended in a moment of calm. The Black Sea’s fried red mullet, served on a pavement terrace, lingered on my tongue, while the last swifts of summer called out their final cries before the night fully settled. Just a few blocks from my accommodation, a peculiar scene unfolded: a man and his canine companion stood over a hedgehog, which had been forced into the road by the chaos of war. The couple’s intentions were clear—they were attempting to guide the small creature to safety, using their phone lights to illuminate the path. As a vehicle barreled toward the hedgehog, I instinctively sprinted into the street, my arms flailing in a desperate plea to halt the oncoming danger. The dog’s bark, sharp and urgent, seemed to echo the city’s own resilience, propelling the hedgehog toward the edge of the sidewalk and into a nearby garden. In that instant, Kyiv’s fragility and tenacity collided, each moment here carrying the weight of a thousand unspoken metaphors about survival, defiance, and the precariousness of existence.
The Sonic Tapestry of War
Later that night, the city’s serenity was shattered by a calculated assault. Russian forces launched a coordinated missile strike, a sound that pierced the silence with an unmistakable ferocity. I awoke abruptly at 2:30am, my heart pounding as I struggled to discern whether the noise was a warning or a warning. It was the latter—air defense systems were active, their hum a rhythmic counterpoint to the chaos above. The following hours brought a symphony of destruction: the droning of Shahed drones, akin to lawnmowers in the sky, punctuated by the sharp crack of Ukrainian small-arms fire. Though my Ukrainian companions had grown accustomed to this soundscape, it remained a haunting spectacle for me, one I couldn’t resist capturing on my phone. Each recording felt like a snapshot of a world in flux, where the line between battle and daily life had blurred beyond recognition.
By dawn, the aftermath of the attacks painted a grim picture. My colleague, the photographer Julia Kochetova, and I ventured out to assess the damage in two distinct neighborhoods. In one, a modern residential complex bore the scars of devastation—its once-clear windows now reduced to shattered glass, each fragment a testament to the relentless strikes. In another, a more modest part of the city, Soviet-era apartment blocks lay in ruins, their walls pockmarked by shrapnel and their foundations trembling from the impact. The toll was severe: seven lives were lost, 90 others injured, and countless more left grappling with the ordinary tragedies of war, from broken homes to dented windshields. Yet, in the midst of this destruction, there was an undeniable sense of endurance.
Life in the Shadow of Conflict
That morning, I encountered a young woman seated by a window that had lost its glass, clutching a meticulously crafted café latte. Her smile, fleeting but genuine, was a quiet acknowledgment of the absurdity of it all—how life continues even when the world around it is in pieces. In Kyiv, the war has become a part of the rhythm, a constant presence that shapes the way people move, speak, and think. The city’s infrastructure, once a symbol of stability, now serves as both a battleground and a refuge. For those living under the shadow of missiles, every act of protection, however small, carries the weight of a larger struggle.
My focus in Ukraine has always leaned toward the cultural rather than the political. I write about the artists who transform the raw, often painful, realities of wartime life into poetry, plays, and visual works that capture the unspeakable. My latest book, Ukrainian Lessons: Art in a Time of War, explores this creative response, now available for preorder at the Guardian Bookshop. The political figures, like President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, remain distant figures in this narrative, their decisions echoing through the city but rarely felt in the everyday choices of its people. My Ukrainian friends, though, are the true architects of resilience, navigating a war that seems to have no end in sight.
The Unspoken Defiance
During my visit to Sviatohirsk, a town once untouched by the frontlines, I witnessed firsthand the toll of the war’s expansion. What was once a place of tranquility and faith is now a kill zone, its streets littered with the remnants of direct fire. The city’s urban fabric, once vibrant and intact, is now a mosaic of destruction and adaptation. As a journalist, I’ve seen the stark contrast between the optimistic rhetoric of diplomats and the stark reality of those on the ground. In Kyiv, the war is not just a backdrop—it is the pulse of life, the unseen force that demands both vigilance and hope.
There is a peculiar kind of solidarity that emerges in such times, a shared understanding that even the smallest acts of care can make a difference. The couple’s effort to save the hedgehog, the dog’s barks, the young woman’s quiet resilience—each moment reflects a deeper truth: that people carry the weight of war not just in their bodies but in their spirits. This is the art of war, as I’ve come to see it. It is not merely the act of fighting, but the act of surviving, of finding meaning in the mundane, and of preserving a sense of normalcy amid the chaos. The city’s residents, with their unyielding determination, have turned the daily grind into a form of resistance, their lives a testament to the human spirit’s capacity to endure.
Reimagining the World
As I write this, the sound of explosions has become familiar, yet it never loses its capacity to unsettle. The streets of Kyiv, once bustling with activity, now echo with a new kind of energy—one that is both fragile and fierce. The war has forced a redefinition of what is possible, reshaping the city’s landscape and its people’s perspectives. In this environment, the ordinary becomes extraordinary, and the extraordinary becomes a source of strength. The hedgehogs, both the animals and the makeshift barriers, stand as symbols of this transformation, their existence a reminder of the small victories that keep the human story alive.
What does it mean to live in such conditions? To wake up each day knowing that your home could be reduced to rubble, that your life might be cut short by a single missile. Yet, in this uncertainty, there is a quiet defiance. The people of Kyiv do not merely endure; they adapt, they innovate, and they find beauty in the wreckage. It is this resilience that I continue to marvel at, a resilience that seems to echo through the city’s streets, the buildings, and the hearts of its inhabitants. As long as there are stories to tell, as long as there are artists to document, the spirit of Kyiv will persist—a city that has learned to survive, even as the war rages on.