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Threatened by the proximity of Russian forces and punished by aerial bombardment at the start of the invasion of Ukraine, kyiv is, six months later, a decompressed city that already allows itself to exhibit war trophies, but also its dilemmas.
When the Russian forces began to abandon, at the end of March, the positions they occupied at the gates of the Ukrainian capital, to concentrate on the Donbass front (in the east of the country), the city restarted its lifebut not quite where he had left her, adjusting to her new normal.
If six months ago, about half of the population, estimated at 3.5 million before the Russian invasion that began on February 24, fled leaving behind a “ghost town”, today the scenario is radically different.
Most military checkpoints have been removed.public transport has resumed, commerce has reopened, workers have returned to companies, opera and ballet shows are back on stage, restaurants, bars and cafes are filled with customers, between patriotic demonstrations in the form of flags and insults to Russian President Vladimir Putin. , and the clubs vibrate with music, but only until 23:00, curfew.
In addition to the limitations of movement, between the trauma of the first days of the war and the fears that it will return to kyiv, the frequent sound of air warning sirens turns out to be the most obvious signal for its inhabitants that it is continuing. be the capital of a country at war.
A few days ago, Valentina Kurdyukova was attending a concert by a philharmonic band at the Opera House, when she was interrupted by an alarm. “But the musicians continued to play patriotic songs in the shelters, trying to cheer people up. This was the concert I wanted to be at, I didn’t want another one, and it will remain in my memory as the concert of my life”.
For the 34-year-old businesswoman, this is also the “spiritual atmosphere” you want to absorb in these times, between “a terrible and cruel war” and “also paradoxically beautiful for the way it unites Ukrainians, leading them to believe in themselves, in Ukraine and in the Army”.
For Valentyna, the return to routine, to concert halls, restaurants and cafes is also a form of resistance. “We have to live with this and not give in. That is what the Russians want: to destroy our culture, our language, our nation. So I have to take my responsibility and keep going to these places, be brave and get on with my life.”
In a recent interview, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that he understands the desire of the people of kyiv to relax after all the suffering of the past few months. “They are alive, they want to feel that life goes on and that you can’t be depressed all the time. And it’s great for the economy.”
At the same time, he understands the disbelief of people in other regions of the country, where the war is still raging: “They look at kyiv and say: ‘How can you sit in cafes when people are dying here?’ They are also right,” Zelensky continued, adding: “The attitudes are different and both are correct in a way.”
For Valentine, this is a feeling of guilt that you do not want to assumeWhy get out of the house and practice your hobbies it is something that makes her feel “alive and healthy” in the face of the psychological shock that she has had since February 24, and there is no guarantee that the Russians have given up on the Ukrainian capital.
You don’t have to be in kyiv to feel the events of the war as if they had taken place here,” he says, citing Wednesday’s bombing of the Dnipropetrovsk train station, which killed at least 25 people, including 2 minors “We suffer in all corners of this country, because we are united and we know people everywhere.”
As a way to combat war-weariness and increase the motivation of the population of kyiv, local authorities placed dozens of Russian armored vehicles and Russian military vehicles destroyed by the Ukrainian army on Khreshchatyk Street, one of the main streets of the city, in an alternative military parade. for the day of national independence, marked on the same Wednesday that Dnipropetrovsk was attacked.
This street, which crosses the square that witnessed the Orange Revolution in 2003 and 2004 and the Euromaidan protests ten years later, was an almost complete desert after the Russian invasion, with all commerce closed, and the only traces of life They could only be found at a now-retired military checkpoint and in a small group of volunteers filling sandbags, when kyiv was a “fortress city.”
Bohran, a 19-year-old film producer, was one of the volunteers, and when Lusa asked him, in the first days of March, if the Russians would ever get over those sandbags, he asked for time to think and only replied: “Let’s go. The best of us”.
Look at them now”, says defiantly, six months later, in the same place, another Bohran, contemplating the exhibition of destroyed Russian cars. “This means that Russia has not been able to do anything, even though it is the second largest army in the world, plus its tanks. Now they are empty, they are all dead, and at least they can’t do anything anymore,” continues the 20-year-old student, from Kharkiv, one of the cities most affected by the war in Ukraine, speaking below. to a garden marked with small national flags, the names of “Ukrainians and foreigners killed by Putin” in this “stupid war”.
Along the long and monumental Khreshchatyk street, large armored vehicles such as the MSTA-C or Akacia, T-72 and T-90, ‘Grads’ (launch-rocketsAssault cars, communications vehicles, transport vehicles, destroyed in various regions of the country, and almost all burned, with a persistent smell of burning iron.
The condition of some of these vehicles reveals what happened to them. The turret of an armored vehicle was blown up by an artillery shot, which is exposed next to the casing of what remained of the vehicle, another was left with the front part destroyed, others still, few, are almost intact. But now they have all been taken over by the Ukrainians, who leave inscriptions painted on the destroyed vehicles with the names of the cities affected by the war.
They said that they would take kyiv in three days and they would be greeted with flowers. After all, they came to the center of kyiv, but with nuances,” says Oksana Joahannessen, a 38-year-old photographer, who has no doubts about the positive effect of this exhibition: “This makes us believe even more in the Ukrainian army and relieves a little the stress of everyday life and the shock of the air alarm sirens”.
In what used to be a street for the absentees, Russian cars now call to thousands of Ukrainians, some of them draped in national flags, leading children by the hand, before the return to school, scheduled for September 1. .
It is a great display and a good example of the courage of Ukraine and its soldiers and people are enjoying it. They live their normal and quiet life, but they also need to see that this is not over and strength is needed, ”says Aliakessandri Apeikin, 35, a Belarusian who introduces himself, unlike the president of his country, Aleksandr Lukashenko, an ally of Moscow , “a friend of Ukraine”, where he volunteers to collect donations for the Army.
And it is in him above all that Sasha, 21, thinks: “We have a powerful enemy and people are united, tired but our soldiers will be much more than us and now we can see the results”. The engineering student even tries to express sorrow for the Russians who died in those tanks, but this sentiment levels off soon after.
We do not ask for this war. They also attacked our cities and killed Ukrainians, including women and children,” he says, standing in the shadow of the Stalinist-architectured kyiv City Hall, where a huge banner demands, in English, “Free the defenders of Mariupol,” in an allusion. the Ukrainian military detained by the Russians after several months of resistance at the Azovstal steel mill.
“We still believe that we will win, but it will take longer than we thought,” says the student. “Next winter is going to be tough. Whatever happens, we are ready.”
Source: Observadora
