Russia-Ukraine war: between air raid alarms and the return to normal life

Russia’s missiles could be launched from the Caspian Sea or from the Black Sea. They take about 30 minutes to be affected, for example, in a city like Lviv. Similarly, a drone or bomber plane can fly into Belarus and be immediately identified on its stealthy journey towards its destination.

Radars can read these movements, to see them coming, but they can’t predict where the effects will happen.

So also anti-aircraft alarms do not stop sounding every day in Ukraine. These were not clearly heard in all the cities of the country, though nothing happened afterwards.

They are skeptical. These are sound, despite the fact that many rockets are destroyed or directly plunged into inert pieces of land. siren sound and and at least in kyiv it doesn’t even move. The war is elsewhere.

The huge capital was alive in the spring days and began to form a memory of what the siege of Russian troops had experienced throughout the month of March.

Spring in Kiev

It stopped being ghostly to be lively. Ang Hipster They went back to their streets. Bars, cafes, department stores open. People walk with the elegant posture of the inhabitants of large cities in Europe and the barricades – at least most of them – have been moved to the sides of wide roads.

Sandbags are piled up in the corners, but you no longer see the parapet soldiers, but the pedestrians taking pictures in front of that defensive architecture that until only 20 days ago made kyiv an armored city.

Now theaters have renewed billboards and have musical events on the agenda: Iron Maiden has been announced for May 29 and no one is suspending that visit so far.

Shops sell natural smoothie juice, skateboards are back in vogue, and many young soldiers use them to get around the historic center.

On the Maidan the controls are loose and the gastronomy offer is varied and varied. Nothing to do with March, when only one restaurant remained open almost surreptitiously.

This Wednesday, on the other hand, there was a queue to take away food at the city’s most popular take away, founded 50 years ago: Kyivska Perepichka, the sausage paradise wrapped in fried bread.

“A complete symbol”, explains young historian Cristina, who spent the war in the city dedicated to rescuing abandoned dogs. “Having a queue of people in this area means that normalcy is returning, though not entirely because the military state is continuing and the curfews are continuing,” he commented.

Alex sat in his brewery and he also agreed to talk Clarion. He drinks his vintage beer, black and creamy. Of course, he invites, but at the same time he admits that nothing is the same.

“The war is not over. It’s not the same now to receive people in my area, have a beer with friends, have fun in the moment. We cannot really enjoy the present because very close by, our relatives are suffering destruction, ”explained the 32-year-old.

He has relatives in Mariupol, the city destroyed to the ground and taken by Russia. “They were able to get out of Italy and they were safe there. But they lost everything, they lost their house, their house exploded,” he explained.

Alex described in his own way what was happening in kyiv and perhaps also in other cities in western Ukraine.

Two faces of Ukraine

There are two Ukrainians: one who moves to overcome the war, to stay out of it, and another who lives the war hard. The first seems to want to embrace the world, cling to a certain and western rhythm of life, it is more lively, less peasant and economically prosperous.

The second is exorbitant: it counts deaths relentlessly, has witnessed the collapse of its infrastructure and contemplates the influx of displaced people fleeing to avoid the worst. The second, it is known, is eastern Ukraine where Russia decided to fight on all possible fronts. This is the lit fuse consumed in the powder keg of Europe.

Kyiv read from afar the reports of the war coming from the front of the South East. This Wednesday the Russians bombed the Severodonestk hospital. Most patients and staff were evacuated on time. One woman died. But the destruction of the building was complete.

In the same city, according to the Ukrainian army, a priest passed information to the Russians about the deployment of local troops.

On the phone of the cleric of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate, police officers found letters to representatives of pro-Russian armed groups, in which this citizen provided information about the number, location and armament of Armed Forces of Ukraine.

bombing

A local was killed in a rebellion in Pryvillya. The Russian missile crashed into the courtyard of a house where the 68-year-old man was then. Earlier, the Russians opened fire on one of the schools in Lysychansk, in the basement where 23 people, including children, were hiding. Fortunately, no one was killed.

Rescuers recorded the destruction of seven houses in the Luhansk region. Almost the entire territory of the region suffered from the April 26 bombings.

Nine Russian attacks were repulsed on the front line of the Lugansk and Donetsk regions, areas where, despite Russia’s advance, Ukrainians were resisting.

“Anonymous” made its contribution to cyberspace: it gained access to 229 thousand emails and 630 thousand files of the “Social Commercial Bank” of St. Louis. Petersburg, one of the 100 largest banks in Russia in terms of net assets.

In Kherson, almost taken by the invading army, there were attempts to bribe the population, but citizens take to the streets to say they are Ukrainians and do not accept Kremlin intervention.

Drama in Mariupol

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In Mariupol everything is dramatic. The Azovstal steel mill is still the dominant news and the UN is preparing a humanitarian mission to evacuate the people trapped there. The attacks and fires around him do not stop.

Russia in parallel is trying to isolate the Odessa region. On Wednesday morning the Dniester estuary bridge was attacked again. Missiles were frequent in the coastal city, near Moldova. That seems to be the new geographical scenario that Vladimir Putin wants to seize.

Little is said about all this in kyiv. The new era has begun, revived and over -consumption. It’s as if the desire for normality kills any kind of hidden threat.

kyiv. Special shipment

CB