The city imposes a curfew to clear the streets and make any such covert invasion less likely.
Kyiv:
Men with long guns peered out from slow-moving cars on Sunday after a night of explosions and gunfire under Kyiv’s wartime curfew – imposed with a firing order.
There is a growing sense of a city under siege among its three million inhabitants – or at least those who have yet to flee – fearing being shot by the Russians or their own security forces.
“What can you do?” Olena Vasylyaka asked, as she darted from her top floor apartment to the basement to shelter her son and several dozen neighbours.
“Of course we suffer. But that’s okay, that’s our life now,” said the 50-year-old. “The feeling of shock is gone.”
The soldiers told AFP they were also worried about a covert incursion by Russian soldiers disguised as themselves of the mortars and Grad rockets that the Kremlin’s troops were lurking in Kyiv.
The city imposed its curfew to clear the streets and make any such covert invasion less likely.
But it has added to a sense of sinister paranoia on Kyiv’s near-empty streets.
The night began with gunshots – a sign of soldiers firing warning shots at pedestrians or actual street fighting.
Ambulances sped past several avenues and armed men in olive-colored uniforms filled with unbranded cars were driving at breakneck speeds.
Birds chirped in the still sunlight, then diverged from the thud of explosions or the occasional crack of gunfire.
Flora Stepanova took it all in with serenity as she smoked a cigarette in the middle of an empty park in the city under military curfew.
“I can’t say I’m not afraid. Of course it’s a bit dangerous,” the 41-year-old said with an odd grin.
“But I think if you’re careful and look around, it’s safer than sitting in front of the TV and watching the news all day, because that will drive you crazy.”
‘We are the best’
However, a strange sense of pride also pervades Kyiv that the city has yet to be invaded.
“We like our army,” said Oleg, Olena’s 23-year-old son, in the basement.
“We love them because they’re doing things they weren’t expecting. They’re doing a lot,” he beamed, proudly.
“We are the greatest country in the world.”
However, the young man showed signs of stress and anxiety.
His little drawing book – a personal indulgence – is filled with anxious swirls that help him strip things off.
The basement was packed with families glancing briefly at their phone screens while sprawled out on carpets and sofas.
‘Calm and horrible’
The streets above are often filled with surreal scenes of a man strutting with an assault rifle and couples carrying plastic bags full of emergency supplies.
A street is guarded by a soldier and an armed man who inexplicably cover the back of his head with a Guy Fawkes mask – the symbol of the hacktivist group Anonymous.
A man smokes outside a closed bank. Several armed men checked the trunk of a family a few feet away.
A car swerved dangerously down a deserted boulevard before howling to a stop and puzzling backwards.
Its driver threw a bunch of cigarettes at a few reporters and drove off without a word.
Soon he was followed by police and several armored vehicles trying to clear the way.
“Everything is calm and everything is terrible,” a smoking man who identified himself as Yuriy – for personal security reasons – said from his balcony.
“Who has easy now? This is war.”
(Except for the title, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from an aggregated feed.)
