It’s day three of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and the capital, Kyiv, has slipped into a war zone faster than I ever imagined.
Only last week, trendy shops and cafés were packed with shoppers and families. Bars and restaurants stayed open late into the night, as partygoers comfortably wandered the sidewalks, drinking and dancing as they found their way home.
Now, almost all businesses are closed and checkpoints are made of tires, bricks and found items. Soldiers and other armed men roam the streets. Many civilians line up at grocery stores or drag suitcases through the city, searching for a way out.
Some filling stations have long lines of cars, but by afternoon, most do not. They are either out of gas, or just closed. It’s not safe to be on the streets today.
Throughout the morning, bombs can be heard outside of the city and occasional gunfire smacks through the neighborhoods. Around 11 a.m., journalists are snapping pictures of a residential building with a hole blasted through three floors when some kind of fighting breaks out in the area.
Some people say it sounds like gunfire. Others suppose it was some kind of aerial weaponry. At any rate, it is loud enough to send most of the journalists to one of Kyiv’s many underground tunnels nearby.
When the noise subsides, Alex, a translator who was born in the neighborhood, tells us he is outraged. There has been nothing but talk of a Russian invasion for weeks, but it all seemed like political posturing until now.
“It’s happening all over the Ukraine right now,” he says. “For sure we didn’t expect what is happening.”
Civilian preparations
We’ve heard the checkpoints into Kyiv are packed, and roads toward the border have been jammed for days. But inside the city, the few cars on the roads whip through traffic lights until we get to a stadium, crowded with cars and men outside.
As we pull into the parking lot, a man with a rifle gives a thumbs up gesture to a friend as he gets in his car to leave. The others in the crowd are waiting. It is a weapons depot for civilians willing to join the fight.
We approach the building and the scores of men waiting outside and a journalist on her way out tells us we need some kind of special permission to go inside with cameras. Many heads turn as we speak, and it becomes clear we are not welcome.
As we briskly return to our cars, Igor, our driver, tells us the problem by typing into Google Translate on his phone. “They think you are spies,” his message says.
Back in the car, Yan Boechat, our photographer, shows me a video of a stop he made earlier while I was editing a story. In an underground bunker, men and women fill crates with bottles, making gasoline bombs.
A young woman with a maroon scarf and brown ponytail pops bits of Styrofoam into the bottles cheerfully while talking to Yan on camera.
“It was wine or lemonade we collected from our neighborhood,” she explains matter-of-factly. “And we brought them here … for doing our jobs.”
Lockdown
As we speed through the almost-empty streets in the general direction of our hotel, Igor makes it clear that we need gas for the car, and soon.
Yesterday, we saw some gas stations open with impossibly long lines. But this afternoon, we cannot find any lines for fuel, just empty stations.
In the back of the car, myself and another colleague begin to discuss. Do we use our remaining gas to drive away from the hotel to a station we believe to be open? Or do we use it to go back to the hotel as the city becomes noticeably more tense.
We pass soldiers manning empty and closed bridges, and a shot is heard as we pass a residential neighborhood. A police officer in the middle of the street stands ready with his gun pointed straight out and our minds are quickly made up. The last of the gas will bring us to the hotel and we will figure out what to do from there.
As we drive back, Yan sees a notice online that a citywide curfew will begin at 5 p.m. Shortly after, another notice comes up on the local media Whatsapp group-chat saying that the lockdown will be complete and last until 8 a.m. Monday.
At the hotel, we order coffee at the bar from one of the few hotel staff members still on duty. Everyone who is working here is now also living here, many with their families. There are typed-paper signs in English and Ukrainian near the elevators indicating directions to the bomb shelter.
The hotel, like the streets of Kyiv, seems to have snapped into war mode almost overnight.
“Food is a weapon, don’t waste it,” reads a sign at the restaurant entrance, asking guests to eat everything they order. The sign is framed and on hotel letterhead. It concludes, “Thank you for understanding the ideals of the war time thriftiness.”
