The USSR has exploded at Kyiv market

Kyiv, from our correspondent. The night before an attack, Kyiv goes about its business as if the danger were far away. As if it didn’t know what was about to happen, when in fact it knows everything. The city centre is bustling, alive, full of laughter, right up until curfew, when the city begins to empty out – not rigidly, but lazily, as people drag themselves home. Midnight is not a guillotine that cuts off vitality from sleep; it is a time that blurs the two realms, and on the night before an attack, people say their goodbyes as if nothing were amiss. Because nothing is amiss – when it comes to dealing with missiles that can strike anywhere, with no time to find shelter, it happens once a week or every ten days if you’re lucky. Nothing must be, if you want to stay alive, knowing that this is merely the start of a new tactic, one that has been going on for months and will continue until a way is found to make up for the shortage of interceptors for ballistic missiles. The most reliable Telegram channels indicate the start time of an attack, when you need to be ready – ideally already in a shelter – and for the latest bombardment that struck Ukraine during the night of 29–30 July, the scheduled start time was 1 am. It had been years since Ukrainians had last used the underground; the shelter that had served as a refuge during the first months of the war had now been relegated to its usual purpose – that of public transport – just like in any other city. But since this summer, they have started going down to the stations again, with tents and sleeping bags, or sprawled across the blocked escalators, because when Moscow strikes with ballistic missiles, everything becomes more deadly and unpredictable, so you have to descend into the depths of the city. At 1.18 am the first explosion occurred, sounding alongside Kyiv’s air-raid siren, which continues to blare after four and a half years; even though the Ukrainians pretend not to hear it, it screams and shouts. But that night, its wail was not alone; it was drowned out by the explosion, and this chorus of hostile sounds is a clear signal: it was a ballistic missile that launched the attack, heralding the start of a sleepless night for Kyiv and much of Ukraine. Moscow launched seventy-four missiles – cruise, ballistic and hypersonic – and nearly three hundred Shahed drones to strike across the country, targeting in particular the capital, Lviv, the Poltava region, and Kryvyi Rih, the city where President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was born and where the highest number of deaths was recorded. Kyiv has an option that other cities do not. The metro is the safe haven that others cannot boast of.

Those who get off at the stops no longer do so with the enthusiasm of experiencing it as something special; they do it out of habit, with ever-greater organisation, knowing that the situation won’t change; so, it is advisable to begin acquiring increasingly comfortable sleeping bags and eye masks, because nobody turns off the lights on the metro and somehow one must sleep, as the next day it all starts again and everyone has been through the same experience, so nobody has an excuse: saying ‘I didn’t sleep’ is not an option in Ukraine, where nobody sleeps but everything must keep running. Some seek shelter, some make a bed in the bathroom – a room that has earned a reputation as the safest in the house – some stay in bed, and some sit watching out of the window. Everyone has their own ritual, but nobody sleeps.

Moscow struck in two waves during the night, the first after one o’clock, the second after three. It was not its fiercest attack; it was intense and deadly, but it seems the Russian army has held back some firepower to use in the near future. The Ukrainians are waiting; the morning after an attack brings a sense of relief – the worst is over, and some time will pass before something even worse happens. War is a constant process of readjustment; security measures that work today become obsolete after a few months. Security measures that work in Kyiv cannot, however, be applied in Odessa or Kharkiv. Resisting requires flexibility; those who are inflexible have already lost, and the Ukrainians are now trying to prepare for winter, knowing that it is the cold months that Russia is counting on most. So this July is a training exercise to be approached with martial seriousness. The day after an attack, in summer, one re-emerges into the light. In winter, darkness remains, the guardian of the frost. What is happening today is a dress rehearsal for the colder months, and in Kyiv there is no one who wants to be caught unprepared: they are training to counter the gamble the Kremlin makes every year – always the same – staking everything on wearing down a country that, on the contrary, grows ever more unyielding the longer time goes on.

Whilst Telegram channels are beginning to tell citizens that Moscow is ready to attack, Ukrainian President Zelensky’s evening address confirms that the attack will take place. Zelensky cannot say much other than: look after yourselves, be careful. Survival on these nights is a matter of individual circumstance, luck, misfortune or choice. Before the latest attack, the Ukrainian president was in Poland, where he had met Prime Minister Donald Tusk in Lublin, at a time when the history of relations between Kyiv and Warsaw is no longer merely one of solidarity and unity, but is fraying into disputes over the past, into images of violence against Ukrainians on Polish streets, distorting faces, tainting words, and dividing Europe. And yet, in a single night, the trajectories of the attack brought the two countries back together, when a Russian missile entered Polish airspace and set off the air-raid siren: the same sound, the same wail, from one side of the border to the other – the soundtrack to a history of violence in Ukraine and a history of threat in Poland.

A sleepless night turns into a drowsy morning; the very same Telegram channels that predict when the bombing will take place – it’s not magic, it’s intelligence – pinpoint the exact locations where the attack caused damage. In Kyiv there were two: one on the outskirts, the other not far from the centre, in the Pochaina market, in that section known as the ‘baraholka’ – a feature of every Ukrainian market – which houses antiques, trinkets and stories from other worlds. It is not uncommon for Kyiv’s residents to visit the site of the explosion; it is a way, they say, of reminding themselves that they are at war, as if the sirens or a night on the metro were not enough. There is a sense of guilt that creeps in, especially amongst those who live in the city centre, amidst the carefully maintained beauty of a part of the city that, out of necessity, remains better protected; and so, from the centre of wonders – which nonetheless bears its own wounds – people head out in search of the rubble, mobile phones in hand to take photos, perhaps even with a story to tell about the site that was hit. It’s easy to have memories of the Pochaina market; everyone knows it. It’s one of those places for old stuff, for the ‘baraholka’, for the bric-a-brac that so many people want nothing to do with. As soon as you step out of Pochaina metro station – three stops from Independence Square – you have to ask for directions. Everyone knows where the missile struck; everyone’s already been to see it, and with a gesture and a few words they’ll tell you to carry on – it won’t be hard to spot. There’s a crater, surrounded by destruction. The antiques market – selling items that time hasn’t destroyed – is a jumble of porcelain, ceramics, pages from books and sheets of newspaper. The smell of burning permeates your clothes. Around the crater, those investigating the explosion wander back and forth; some try to get inside. Had the ballistic missile landed elsewhere, this market would be a hive of activity and confusion; instead, there are now traders trying to salvage something from their collections. A man pulls what remains of his market stall from the rubble: Soviet pins and candle holders, objects that have survived the passage of time, which he is trying to save once again. The missile at Pochaina market appears to be the answer to those who wonder how long this tale of trinkets and nostalgia will last – a tale that might be eternal; yet here in Ukraine, it is drawing to a close more quickly than expected, hastened by every attack, shattered by every air-raid siren. Amidst the rubble of the antiques market, amongst the shards of saucers from kitchens that no longer exist, and old children’s books, the Soviet Union has exploded once more, this time under the weight of a Russian missile.