![]() “It’s been a fucking rollercoaster,” Sasha told me on the phone yesterday. Sofy went back to Kharkiv once Sasha couldn’t bear to visit. They moved Sasha’s parents out of Kramatorsk, just a few miles north of the grimmest fighting in Bakhmut. “It was so loud outside sometimes,” he told me. Sasha and his partner Sofy moved back to Ivano-Frankivsk as Kyiv endured waves of missiles and drones. The eastern fronts grew colder, darker, and far more brutal. In the fall and early winter, Russia bombarded the city and other population centers in Ukraine relentlessly, targeting power stations and civilian infrastructure and plunging much of the city into frequent blackouts with inconsistent water, heat, and cellular service. If a Russian assault is coming, it hasn’t materialized yet.īut as winter set in, so did Kyiv’s hard-won normalcy. It’s now late afternoon in Kyiv, and the city is still quiet. and Ukrainian officials warn that Russia is planning a fresh wave of missiles and drone strikes across the country, seeking to destabilize the country and give itself a moral victory on the one-year anniversary of the war. President Joe Biden risked a secretive visit earlier this week. Over the past year, some form of stability has reasserted itself in many areas of Ukraine, giving the capital city enough security that U.S. Everyone is prepared for the power or water or heat to go out again. A military curfew keeps everyone indoors after 11 p.m. There were no air raid sirens, no explosions. It was quiet, like it was a year ago, even calmer than that first respite in Kharkiv. Last night, the same kind of snowfall settled over Kyiv: big, delicate flakes floating down slowly onto frozen sidewalks. Even the drone of air raid sirens felt faint. From the balcony of my hotel, I listened to muffled thumps of artillery in the distance. On the second day of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, a gentle snowfall blanketed the city of Kharkiv, where I was when the war began. KYIV - It is remarkable how much the snow dampens sound. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |