War in Ukraine: Russian air strikes: “Kiev lives with tears in the eyes”

Siren -Heul – It is again air -alarm in the Ukrainian capital Kyiv. Military -related telegram channels report a Russian drone that flies from east via the Dnipro river towards the city center. Occupational machine gun fire can be heard away, but the striking humming approaches the striking hum of the initially mopeds baptized combat drones of Iranian design. A rocket rises, a bang. “Update: destroyed by the air defense”, you can read.

But the calm, it doesn’t last long. Dozens of other drones and later rockets prepare the three million Kiewers a night full of fear and terror. Since the beginning of the year, the Russian military has been using more drones than a year ago and concentrates in its attacks on goals in a region. Hardly any night in Kyiv passes more without aerial arm. Even the air defense of the particularly protected capital is increasingly broken. Residents of the city speak of a gambling.

Set up for the night in the subway

In the historic city center, people with small pockets, isoles and ceilings rush to the green shining “M” of the “Golden Gate” metro station. Mothers take their children by the hand, who have the most necessary for the night in their backpacks. Sleeping children carry the parents down into the deep subway station in their arms, which was also intended in Soviet time as protection against a US atomic attack. In front of the entrance there are already smokers and listen, the view of the cell phone again and again, the defense fight in the distance.

Some set up in the entrance area of the station. They sit on stairs, the radiators or lie on an isolate and try to sleep in the half -darkness of the emergency lighting and the regular beeping of the machines. Most go underground.

There, many have already prepared a sleeping place with entire mattresses or field beds or sit on the folding seats provided. A man on crutches initially stands a little undecided in the entrance area until the subway employee brings him a chair and he sat down. Rarely, older and limited movements go to the protected spaces not prepared for their needs.

After the drones, rockets come

Again and again the battle noise can be heard from the air from a distance. Mayor Vitali Klitschko and the competing military governor Tymur Tkatschenko provide information about the consequences on Telegram. Around one at night, they report first injuries and fires in several districts. Videos already show drone strikes in the south of the city around the Schuljany city airport used by the air defense. The majority of the enemy aircraft seems to be heading for targets in the area away from the center that night.

The first air alarm is over after about four and a half hours. Many people leave the subway and go home – in the hope of a quiet remaining night. But the calm doesn’t last long. The sirens cry again at half past two. “For Kyiv there is a risk from ballistic rockets,” writes Tkatschenko near Telegram. After the start you have a flight time of less than three minutes. The subway station fills again. But on Telegram you can read about several groups of marching aircraft that are approaching the capital. These take longer than ballistic rockets. A little more time to go to a safe place.

Loud thundering outside, lean sobbish inside

A little later, a dozen explosions shake the city within a short time. The auto alarm systems cry out in a courtyard near the metron, the pressure waves are so violent. The transparent glass front to the courtyard also noticeably cracks under the pressure, but it keeps standing and does not bush.

A young woman with a fashionable short haircut shrugged violently while thundering and begins to sob quietly. With her partner, the dog and a cat, she had rushed to the metro in a carrier bag shortly before. The man comfortingly caresses her head, not leaving the cell phone out of his eyes. He puts some water in the Golden Retriever in a bowl. The cat also gets something. They don’t stay for a long time. Only a retired watershow reminds you of your presence for a while.

In the middle of the cracking of the aircraft missiles, a supplier comes with fresh baked goods for the kiosk in the subway entrance area. Unmoved from the noise outside, he loads the boxes and prepares the expenses for the opening the next morning. One of the waiting asks about the pastries: “When do you open?”. “At seven,” is the laconic answer, while the air defense can be heard outside. Gripping the empty boxes back on his sack cart, he rolls out as stoically and continues. After almost 40 minutes, this flight alarm is over.

“With us there is disco every evening”

Only a minority can search for protection in the subway, the underground garages or one of the few existing shelters in the three million city. Most remain in their own four walls, like inna. “We have a disco almost every evening,” says the hairdresser from the Darnyzja district of the German press agency. “I lie in bed with the window open and look like one volley after the other,” she describes the nights in the east of the city. She doesn’t want to go into a shelter or the metro. Her husband sits in the corridor at the same time to be protected by two walls at least.

“It’s like a lottery,” she says about impacts in residential buildings. “I don’t have this tourist equipment like mats and you can’t get to sleep in the metro,” says the blonde final fifties. It is better for them to be in their own apartment. “Especially since we have to go to work the next day, nobody has yet abolished.”

Leaving the city would feel like betrayal

Natalija also prefers her own apartment. “We mumble in ceilings in the hallway and wait,” says the kiosk seller, who lives close to the “Artem” rocket factory that is often attacked in the Lukjaniwka district west of the center. In one of the latest attacks, she briefly went into a shelter with her daughter. “But I’m back to the apartment because of the cats. The cats are like children, I can’t leave them alone,” she explains.

Leaving the city is out of the question for it because of its two sons on the front. “Kiev lives in her eyes with tears,” she says with a view of the victims at the front and in the city itself and prepares coffee for the next customer.

In the balance sheet of the Ukrainian air defense, you can later read about an attack with over 300 drones and eight marching aircraft. Five impacts of rockets and 21 of drones, especially in Kyiv. Several houses are sometimes completely destroyed and there are at least 31 deaths and over 150 injuries. Nevertheless, on the evening the guitarist at the Golden Gate plays the city anthem composed in Soviet pages like every day for the numerous strollers: “How could you not love you, my Kiev”.