Moments of normality puncture mood of shock, fear and quiet disgust in Ukraine’s capital
It began in darkness soon after 4.30am local time. There were distant explosions in the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, and the whine of car alarms. A nation shook itself awake. What had been foretold by western governments, by experts, and – late in the day – by the country’s president Volodymyr Zelenskiy was actually happening. Russia was attacking and invading. Vladimir Putin’s apparent goal: the subjugation of a nation, a culture, a people. It was unthinkable in the twenty-first century. And yet, with imperial swagger, Russian troops, tanks and planes were on the move.
The disaster unfurled itself on a grey ordinary Thursday morning, sprinkled by rain. By 5am friends and loved ones were ringing each other, peering into their phones, making life and death decisions. Stay or flee? Some packed and got ready to leave; others took refuge in apartment block basements. An underground garage began to fill up in Yaroslaviv Val, close to Kyiv’s historic golden gate, dating back to the eleventh century and to Kyivan Rus, a pre-Moscow dynasty. A family arrived. A mother shepherded her two bleary-eyed children to safety. The children were carrying colouring books, scant defence against Russian missiles.
