In recent weeks, life in Kyiv has been turned upside down. Stories and rumours from the capital, amid hope and fear

Kyiv. A day in the life of Ukraine’s capital: at 10.08, the air-raid siren sounded. Shortly afterwards, a series of loud explosions were heard in various parts of the city centre. By 10.46, the threat had passed. The mayor of Kyiv, Vitali Klitschko, reports that a Russian drone struck a six-storey residential block in the Shevchenkivskyi district, causing it to partially collapse. A nearby three-storey building was also on fire. At least seven people were injured. Since 27 August, the residents of Kyiv have been living in unusual circumstances. Alarms sound at all hours.

Drones are flying over the capital one after the other. Frontline cities such as Kharkiv and Zaporizhzhia have been living with this reality for over four years. But Kyiv had remained different: night-time bombardments and a peaceful life by day. Now, the city, home to around 3.7 million people, will have to adapt to a sharp deterioration in security. Il Foglio asked residents of the capital to share on Facebook how they are adapting to this situation and how they are coping psychologically with the new challenges. The more than 400 responses show that people are experiencing this new phase in different ways. For example, Olga Vinogradova thought she had stopped flinching at the constant downing of drones. “It was as if they’d become background noise,” she explains. But when an explosion rumbles nearby, her body now reacts with panic. “Over the last six days, my brain has stopped resting: I’ve started having nightmares; it’s clearly a consequence of the situation around me,” she says. She can only sleep with the help of sleeping tablets and earplugs, whilst she has tried to keep other aspects of her daily life, such as work and exercise, unchanged. “It gives me the chance to switch off, even if only for a short while,” she says. Maryna Nevmerzhytska explains that to stabilise her mental health, she has started cooking more, reading books and going for walks in the park. She tries to spend at least 15–30 minutes every morning without electronic devices, to start the day calmly. “I’ve even turned off my phone’s alarm; I’d had enough of it. I’ve stopped reacting to the sound of explosions,” says Anastasia Levkova. Ganna Rybalka no longer goes to shopping centres, as she fears they might be attacked by drones. There have been many similar incidents in Ukraine; on 21 August alone, 16 people were killed in an attack on a shopping centre in Kryvyi Rih.

Residents on the left bank of Kyiv are experiencing significant disruption. During air raid alerts, the metro does not run across the bridge over the River Dnipro. “One day it took me four hours to get home from the city centre,” says Evgeniya Sapozhnikova. Due to the recent disruption, she is working from home, staying on the left bank. “My anxiety about my son is through the roof,” notes Evgeniya. She is considering seeing a psychiatrist to better cope with the new situation and provide stronger support for her son. Schools are also responding differently to the new threats: some have switched to remote learning, whilst others are holding lessons in shelters. Olga Armyanishina also lives on the left bank. On the social media platform Threads, she found a chat group to organise lifts to the other side during times of anxiety, when the metro isn’t running. “Yesterday, for 200 hryvnias (4 euros), I got a lift in a Tesla from Khreshchatyk to Chernihivska,” she boasts. Now she always leaves the house in comfortable shoes, because her journey to work can take three hours instead of 50 minutes. Tatyana Borovik recently moved to Kyiv from Kramatorsk, in the Donetsk region, a city that is getting ever closer to the front line and is constantly under bombardment by Russian troops. In the capital, she manages to sleep well: “Compared to Kramatorsk, it’s paradise.”

Even those with relatives at the front perceive the bombings differently. “My son is in the army and I’m not worried about the threats; as long as I can hear his voice, everything’s fine,” explains Tatyana Akelina. Olga Musafirova’s son is also at the front; she worries only about him, not about herself. But this does not mean that the new situation in Kyiv is not affecting her: her body has completely forgotten how to sleep: “I go through the motions; I have a headache almost all the time.”

Andriy Gorb, a resident of Kyiv, has stopped drinking alcohol to sleep better. Maksym Nefedov, on the other hand, notes that coffee and alcohol, along with various hobbies, are what help him most. Another drawback is that, during periods of alert, GPS often does not work. “I bought a road map for my car so that I can find my way around the city without a sat-nav,” says Olena Konoplya. “And I bought a house 120 kilometres from Kyiv so that I can go there to sleep and relax; I’ve taken my mother there too,” she adds.

Many commenters acknowledge that the first few days, with drones buzzing incessantly, were extremely gruelling. Surprisingly, however, both body and mind gradually adapt. The main rule of this new life, according to Myroslava Lazurenko, is: ‘Don’t despair and look after yourself as much as possible’.

Eleven air-raid sirens sounded in Kyiv yesterday.