Kyiv, Ukraine — At times, the streets of this city can feel like those of any European capital. There are restaurants and fancy hotels, cafés and posh bars adorned with string lights and filled with young people whispering over drinks. There are UNESCO world heritage sites and cathedrals and monasteries and monuments to the patria. On the banks of the Dnieper stands the Church of Saint Andrew, built on the spot where, according to ancient tradition, the Apostle Andrew first preached the Gospel to the Slavs.
But of course this city is not like other European capitals. This is not Vienna or Paris or Warsaw. This is a city at war — a city under near nightly attack. Around any particular corner, you might find a building in ruins, or with its windows smashed out and boarded up. The string lights around the café patio on the next block may be dark, as that section of the city suffers through another blackout, another cold night. Many of the major buildings and apartment blocks have portable generators set up outside on the sidewalk. The basements have been converted into air-raid shelters. The airport is quiet; the airspace is closed — there has not been any commercial traffic out of Boryspil International Airport, on the eastern outskirts of this city, since February 2022, when the Russians launched their full-scale invasion.
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