- James Waterhouse
- BBC correspondent in Kyiv
29 minutes ago
image source,Getty Images
Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, didn’t look like a city ready to welcome 150,000 Russian soldiers across the border into the country.
When I arrived in Kyiv on January 1st, I decided to brave the supermarket near my apartment. You seem to be able to buy almost any kind of meat and vegetable, even a beer at Sixth Aisle.
“It’s all bluff,” and “We’re already fighting,” these were the most common responses when I asked people if they were worried about what seemed like a fantasy at the time.
Of course, five weeks later, everything changed. Some in the West predict that Kyiv will fall within 72 hours.
For 100 days, the city stubbornly maintained normalcy, then went through darkness, and now finds some sort of calm again.
It’s still far from its pre-war state, but it’s already a picture of stubborn resistance.
“You better pack up,” was a brief line I received on a phone call at 4:50 a.m. on February 24th.
Then I walked up to the rooftop of our building.
That night, Kyiv and Ukraine changed forever.
The sound of air raids rang out from time to time in the sky. Low-flying planes occasionally flew overhead, plumes of black smoke wafting from the horizon.
Then, there was the constant sound of air defense sirens.
With the shadow of war looming over this ancient city, everything feels imminent.
Many people who choose to stay in Kyiv will hide in the subway station.
The highway leaving Kyiv was blocked by thousands of cars trying to avoid the Russian advance.
People lined up in front of ATMs, as did the recruitment offices of the Ukrainian Territorial Defense Forces. They’ll show their ID and get the now-familiar yellow armbands, and an automatic weapon.
On the eve of noon, President Volodymyr Zelensky tweeted that everyone who is ready to guard Ukraine will be given arms.
These extraordinary words, from a national leader, correspond to the immediate threat to his country.
From our air-raid shelter, people on the social platform Telegram watched as Russian airborne troops attempted to capture the Hostomel airbase northwest of Kyiv.
Fierce fighting took place there, and it was in this area that new war fronts were formed.
In the weeks that followed, Russian forces began using long-range missiles to attack the city’s central area. Kyiv’s air defenses often worked, but residential buildings were still hit from time to time.
More than half of the city’s 4 million people left. Nearly 15 million people have been displaced across Ukraine, according to the United Nations.
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A mall in Retroville was hit directly and damaged for a mile in a radius.
In March, a deadly attack razed a mall in Retroville, northeast of the city. The facades of buildings in nearby blocks were also blasted.
Here, a kindergarten is damaged by shrapnel after a missile was intercepted.
Thousands were trapped by fighting in the surrounding towns of Irpin and Bucha.
The temporary ceasefire allowed some to flee to Kyiv’s train station, from where most headed west to cities such as Lviv.
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Many people ventured under heavy bombardment.
By April, the tide began to turn.
The Russian retreat allowed Kyiv to partially return to its original state. There are no longer military checkpoints in the middle of the city.
Feelings of anger and fear are replaced by the occasional smile. Cafe and restaurant menus also have some better options. Kyiv looked like a different filter as the sun shone down from its head.
Despite the fears faced at the time, the city was not caught in the siege of Mariupol and Severo Donetsk. The safe road to the south gave the city a continuous supply of “blood” that kept Kyiv alive.
The temporary renewal of the capital has exposed overwhelming evidence of war crimes.
In residential towns such as Borodyanka, not a single building was undamaged.
Police found hundreds of bodies of soldiers and civilians in shallow graves, and the numbers continue to rise.
The Kremlin has consistently denied committing war crimes, calling the evidence “false”. However, the devastation around Kyiv is true.
For the past few weeks, the city has felt as calm as ever. The curfew will still be implemented after 23:00 in the evening, but the vitality of the day has been restored.
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Recently, Kievs wore traditional Ukrainian embroidered clothes on Vyshyvanka Day.
The museum has reopened, and “road rage” in traffic jams is once again a routine.
Officials believe the city’s population has recovered to two-thirds of its original size. Watching parks with more visitors, movie theaters getting fuller, and people walking into subway stations again just to get in the car, it really feels like that.
While it remains uncertain whether the Russians will try again to seize Ukraine’s capital, the city appears determined to heal itself.
What the next 100 days will bring is far from clear, and the Ukrainians know it. Returning to normal life can be said to be both a coping mechanism and an essential step for people.