LEV MILAVSKY plays a snatch of a Cossack military march and then points his clarinet like a gun. At 63, he has been told he is too old to fight. So, he says, “I do what I can do to help our armed forces.” On March 9th he took part in a brief, morale-raising concert for Ukrainian television on Maidan or Independence Square, the heart of Kyiv. Under a lowering sky and occasional flurries of snow, a dapper, goateed conductor raced through polkas, waltzes and a rousing version of the national anthem.
Two weeks after Vladimir Putin invaded Ukraine, its capital remains braced for attack, defiant but nervous.
Checkpoints constructed by the Territorial Defence (TD), Ukraine’s new second-line defence force, now stop traffic to check IDs along all major roads and intersections. With each day that Kyiv remains unconquered, TD checkpoints and barricades become more fortified. Trucks are moving around the city delivering concrete blocks to reinforce them. Firing positions are being built; trenches dug. At one barricade a wall of tyres has been covered with piles of Soviet-era books, including V.V. Alyoshin’s “Vegetation of the USSR”, published in 1951. If and when the time comes, the books will act as kindling for the tyres, and black smoke will rise to obscure the view of the attacking Russians.
Two weeks ago, many of the tens of thousands of men now on the barricades were leading mundane civilian lives; but their officers were not. They are professionals from the armed forces and other security services. They are also mostly experienced veterans of the eight-year grinding conflict in eastern Ukraine. Now they have been redeployed to organise the TD. Regular soldiers are rarely seen within the city.
The TD forces that have fanned out across Kyiv are supported by a volunteer network which grew out of the revolution of 2014. In Troieshchyna, in the north-east of the city, scores of people are slicing, dicing and cooking in a huge military canteen area built beside a broad avenue under blocks of flats. Boxes of supplies are flowing in, donated by shops and wholesalers. Bohdan Kuts, aged 59, who is shoving logs into a mobile military stove, says he was a professional singer of “classical, folk and choir music”, but now “every person has their place.”
Kyiv’s streets are almost entirely deserted. A huge but unknown share of the population, especially women with children, have fled. Many of those who have stayed say they would have gone had they not had sick or elderly parents to care for.
There are queues at supermarkets and pharmacies. These are the only shops still open, and some of them have closed. The supermarkets are depleted but not empty, pharmacies are running low on medicines and people trudge between them looking for what they need. Some stalls with fruit and vegetables are open and supplies continue to arrive. Running one stall, Natalyia, aged 37, says that people are mostly buying onions, potatoes, cabbage, beetroot and other ingredients for borscht because it is cheap and easy, and can be made in large amounts and eaten over several days.
Among those queuing there is a blitz spirit. As they wait, often for hours, people swap information about what is available and where. Neighbours are buying for neighbours and family and friends who cannot get out or endure the biting cold. A generosity of spirit prevails. When The Economist’s correspondent said he had found no bread, the lady in a pharmacy queue next to him tried to give him a loaf.
The air-raid siren wails every few hours, but two weeks into the war people in Kyiv are beginning to ignore it. After a few missiles hit or were intercepted in the first days of the invasion the city has been spared. Occasional explosions can be heard in the distance. Volodymyr, aged 34, a metro worker, reflects the views of many when he says he believes that Kyiv has not been subjected to aerial and missile attacks as awful as those in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second city, because its air-defence system is “not bad”.
The situation is radically different just outside the city. Two weeks ago Irpin, 25 minutes’ drive north-west of the city centre, was a leafy suburban town. Now Russian forces hold part of it, while Ukrainian soldiers are battling to expel them. If they fail, the Russians will be at the very gates of the city. In the meantime Irpin’s civilians, who have been sheltering in basements for days without running water, electricity or a phone signal, are fleeing whenever they can. They all report that their homes or blocks of flats are under attack. Those who have seen Russian soldiers say that they are mostly young, sometimes drunk, and that they have been looting shops for food and alcohol.
Some of those young Russian soldiers were on show on March 9th at a press conference organised for prisoners of war by the security services. They claimed they were there voluntarily and not under compulsion. One group of five aged 18-23 looked scared and said they did not know they were supposed to come to Ukraine. They had been brought into the building blindfolded and with their arms on the shoulders of the man in front to guide them.
A group of seven others, including older men who said they were from military intelligence, all asked for forgiveness. They said that they had surrendered after their vehicle had broken down, then taken refuge in a wood for four days and got into a firefight with armed villagers. They wanted their message to be heard in Russia, they said, so that their countrymen could see the truth and that the war could stop. For now, that seems a forlorn hope. ■
Our recent coverage of the Ukraine crisis can be found here