Suspicion that infiltrators had entered Kyiv started almost as soon as the invasion. As reports swirled about exchanges of fire in the city centre and sightings of Russian tanks approaching Kyiv, the authorities began to arm civilians – few of whom had ever held a gun before.
Checkpoints were set up all over the city, some just a few hundred metres apart. The soldiers and reservists manning them seemed jumpy and tense, training their guns at any approaching, unmarked vehicle and aggressively questioning the occupants. Drivers began to denote their allegiance to Ukraine with a bright yellow armband or a white square, taped to the windshield. Some aspects of civil defence were even more low tech, such as taking down street signs: in 2019 Russia’s parliament banned soldiers from carrying smartphones, so they have no easy way to find their way around.
The level of fear and paranoia is high. When soldiers look at our documentation, they sometimes ask us to say a particular word in Ukrainian that Russians supposedly can’t pronounce: palianytsia, a type of traditional Ukrainian bread. I thought it was a joke, at first. It’s a crude technique, as old as the Bible: the word “shibboleth”, which meant ear of grain, was used by a Hebrew tribe to unmask members of a rival tribe who pronounced it differently – hence the modern meaning. (Other similarly haphazard methods being used to distinguish friend or foe include trick questions: one journalist was asked to name the Ukrainian emergency minister. Correct answer: “We don’t have one.”)
“Stop filming us! The Russians will know where to bomb us! You’ll get us all killed!”
Everyone is anxious about whether someone they meet might be a spy. When I’m out reporting, passers-by sometimes demand my documents, take pictures of me and ask me my nationality and media outlet. Even once I’ve provided all that information, some remain suspicious. Last week, while I was filming a queue of people outside a pharmacy waiting in the freezing cold for hours to buy medicines, a man shouted angrily: “Stop filming us! The Russians will know where to bomb us! You’ll get us all killed!”
No one is sure how seriously to take the threat of infiltrators. Vitali Klitschko, the mayor of Kyiv, has spoken of “hunting these people”: at one point he said that Ukrainian forces had executed six infiltrators in a single weekend.
The climate of suspicion is pervasive. Two days after the Russians invaded, a 39-hour curfew was introduced – the authorities said it was part of an effort to make it easier to identify any rogue operators. That Saturday, a sign appeared in the hotel lobby: “Dear Guests, Please note that all civilians on the street during the curfew will be considered members of the enemy’s sabotage and reconnaissance groups. Best regards, Hotel Management.” The government was even more blunt: any person out on the street was liable to be shot. ■
Francesca Ebel is a journalist in Kyiv
The grandads are out in force
A gruff-looking man with a grey moustache peers over a stack of sandbags with binoculars. Close by, another man with a rounded belly wearing a camouflage jacket stands in front of a makeshift checkpoint, using a hunting rifle to direct approaching cars.
Wanting to be useful, Ukrainian men who are too old for military service have mobilised themselves to guard their villages and towns. “We are all essentially pensioner age,” said Ivan, 58, who was making his way to the checkpoint with eight other men for a four-hour shift (he declined to give his surname). “Those who are younger are fighting and those who are older are covering for them.”
The volunteers started mustering the day after Russia attacked: groups of middle-aged and older men drove tractors and operated small cranes, moving breeze blocks to create checkpoints on the roads to all the towns and villages around Kyiv. Armed with a range of guns, they now monitor all incoming cars, question passengers and patrol the streets. They report any suspicious presence or information about enemy movements up the chain of command. These men stand at the bottom of the military hierarchy, below both Ukraine’s armed forces and newly founded territorial army. Ukraine now relies on these old men to repel one of the world’s most powerful armies.
In one village near Kyiv, a volunteer on patrol wearing military fatigues and a yellow armband, told us that any photography, including a benign snap of people queuing for vegetables, must be approved by a unit based at the village council. Ihor Hrib, a reserve officer in a khaki jersey, commands bands of volunteers across five villages in the Kyiv region from the council building. As we chatted, he communicated with the fighters on various walkie-talkies which, he told us, were donated by a local “lad”.
Not everyone makes the cut to stand guard at a checkpoint. Roles are assigned based on reputation. “They know that this person is reliable, and, for example, this one loves to get drunk,” said Hrib. All volunteers are welcomed, but some are put to work filling sandbags or digging trenches.
A man with a rounded belly wearing a camouflage jacket uses a hunting rifle to direct approaching cars
New checkpoints are appearing each day, showing the enthusiasm to be active at a local level. We stopped at 16 during a one-hour drive into Kyiv – two had been built in the past day alone. Neither the checkpoints nor the volunteers will be able to stop a column of Russian-armed vehicles, said Hrib. The aim is to slow down Russia’s advance and give volunteers time to warn nearby populations and Ukraine’s army. But checkpoints are now so numerous that one government adviser has asked the territorial army to remove some of them: they are causing mass traffic jams.
In a nearby village we met Anatoli Shafranskyi. These days he is a priest, but he used to be an officer in the Soviet army; in 2014 he served in eastern Ukraine after Russia invaded. He thought he’d left his soldiering behind him for the church. Aged 66, his military experience has earned him a place leading local volunteers.
Dressed in camouflage-print bomber jacket and blue tracksuit bottoms, Shafranskyi proudly showed us photos from his days fighting in eastern Ukraine, along with a profile of him in a regional newspaper. Then he took out a doctor’s note from the Kyiv military hospital with a list of his illnesses, including bad circulation in his brain, which sometimes makes his behaviour erratic, and hernias on his groin and spine.
Shafranskyi seemed undeterred by the doctor’s prognosis. “Only god knows [if I’m ill],” he said. “When I was in the east, I was living on adrenaline and I am now too.” He was convalescing at a clinic when war broke out – then he returned home to gather his family together. There are now 25 people living with him, including eight children, the youngest of whom is seven months old.
“When I came back [from the clinic], they gave me an order: ‘Father, there should be a checkpoint in that position in the next two hours’,” said Shafranskyi. “Within an hour and half, it was up.” Neither age nor illness will stop him now, he says. “I don’t want my children to suffer like those in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions. I’m still carrying the consequences of that experience.” ■
Isobel Koshiw is a freelance journalist based in Kyiv
PHOTOGRAPHS: RON HAVIV / VII