Streets, shops and restaurants are busy, with trade in some cases returning to pre-war levels, locals gather on beaches in the August heat and there have been only two rocket attacks on the capital since late April, making the fighting appear distant. Although some restaurants in town closed early at 7 p.m. this week, the expectation is that the situation will be temporary. Even McDonald’s, which left Ukraine at the start of the war, has promised to return in September to the keen anticipation of Kiev. But the appearance of normalcy is deceptive: evidence of the war is not hard to find. Although the city is not supposed to host internally displaced people because it is not considered completely safe, there are 140,000 registered refugees and many more who have fled privately. Some gather at the Red Cross distribution center, one of 11 in the city, in a former bank near Maidan Square in the heart of the city, where food and medical packages are delivered to families, pensioners and disabled people, often on small incomes. Tetiana Goienko says the number of displaced people is increasing. Photo: Vudi Xhymshiti/The Guardian Tetiana Goienko, head of the Kyiv Red Cross, said that “because Kyiv is not supposed to host displaced people, they have to rent their own accommodation.” But capital is expensive and available financial support limited – a pensioner gets 3,000 hryvnas (£69) a month, unemployed adults 2,000, while families get an extra 3,000 per child. Jobs can be hard to come by, with positions attracting dozens of applicants, although some sectors such as construction are said to be busy for obvious reasons. Those who find work may bear the brunt of this year’s events, which have forced up to 13 million from their homes across Ukraine. Katerina, 43, was a dental surgeon from Mariupol who went to Kyiv for work at the start of the war and was separated from her 77-year-old mother, Raisa, for an agonizing month. Finally, after a desperate search, a colleague found her mother and managed to get her safe passage out of the besieged southern city. The apartment she lived in was destroyed, Katerina added, and she and her mother lost almost all of their possessions in the escape. With the Russians now in control of the city, devastated by the spring fighting, there is no prospect of a return. Eventually Katerina began to rebuild and found a job as an administrator with the Red Cross team, although she said “what I earn here in a month is what I used to earn in two days”. It is slow to rebuild, although Katerina, who was born in Moscow and describes herself as ethnically Russian, is emphatic about the need for Ukraine to fight. Archie Bland and Nimo Omer take you to the top stories and what they mean, free every weekday morning Privacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online advertising and content sponsored by external parties. For more information, see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and Google’s Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. Katerina, a pediatric dentist and lawyer from Mariupol, fled the city when it was attacked by Russian forces. Photo: Vudi Xhymshiti/The Guardian “The only thing Russia has brought us is pain and suffering. We want to live in Ukraine. We don’t want anyone else to decide for us where to live,” he said. “My mother and I could have moved there and got citizenship very easily because we are both Russian, but we don’t want to – and the Russians don’t understand that.” A few minutes’ walk away, the trendy ZigZag restaurant is now packed in the evenings. Its owner, Liubov Tsybulska, says it’s as busy as it was before the war, although there are some obvious changes, including a mostly male wait staff, because so many women have left the country, while men between 18 and 60 usually are prevented from doing so. It’s been a year of transformation for ZigZag. When the Russians were on the edge of town, it provided 700 meals for soldiers with the help of volunteers, then reopened on a part-commercial, part-volunteer basis, before gradually returning to near-normality, except for the curfew, which forced it to close . at 9 p.m. or at 9.30 p.m. when it would be open until 2am on weekends. For Tsybulska, ZigZag has always also been a patriotic endeavor. “We are pulling Ukraine from Russia here with our food and values. Because we were open in 2016, when it was not fashionable, we insisted that the waiters speak Ukrainian and not Russian.” But instead of flaunting the past, when the restaurant soon celebrates its seventh birthday, it won’t be throwing its usual party, instead donating the money that would have been spent on the armed forces. Internally displaced people collect the food and hygiene package in Kyiv. Photo: Vudi Xhymshiti/The Guardian So normal is much of life in Kyiv that some in the middle classes are hoping for an easing of the remaining wartime restrictions. On the beach on a Sunday afternoon, Oleskandr, 52, says the war has made him in high demand as a psychologist, but he’s hoping for a break from the pressure of his job, where he counsels soldiers dealing with life-changing injuries. But it’s hard to make plans, say Oleksandr and Svetlana, 44, because it’s impossible to count on lasting normalcy. He would like to take a short break abroad – “we hope martial law will be relaxed at least so we can leave the country on holiday” – although they also insist Ukraine must fight as long as necessary to defeat the invaders. But concerns remain about the medium-term health of the economy, whether winter will lead to another wave of displaced people arriving, and whether patience will run out in a war where an expected counter-offensive shows no sign of materializing. An opposition lawmaker, who asked not to be named because he did not want to criticize publicly, said they were worried “when people’s expectations are finally realized” and they realize the war would be long and expensive to win. Busy Kyiv may seem largely rejuvenated, but the tensions of the conflict may still come to the fore.
