Five people living in or visiting Ukraine describe the atmosphere amid the threat of invasion
Photograph: Bryan Smith/Zuma Press/Rex/ShutterstockPhotograph: Bryan Smith/Zuma Press/Rex/ShutterstockWhile fears of a possible Russian military invasion ofcontinue to grow in Europe and the west, people in Ukraine have to get on with their daily lives.
I am in central Ukraine. I’m kind of halfway between Kyiv and Crimea, so it’s still a long way from, for instance, Donetsk and Luhansk. It’s much worse in eastern Ukraine and in Kyiv. I have friends [there] and my brother also lives in Kyiv. They do say that people are panicking a lot more there because they feel they might be the primary target. I have a friend in Kyiv who says many of her friends have signed up for self-defence courses or even purchased hunting rifles.
The escalation has become the [main] topic in our media and a usual topic of chats over coffee. People discuss whether to fight, to do nothing or to run away somewhere in Europe. YouTube is full of [videos advising] “how to prepare for surviving a war” or “what to put in your survival/alarm kit”. These videos have mostly been created in the last two months – some were created [before] but have become popular now.
I have lived in the UK for eight years but have been in Odessa for the past three weeks visiting my parents. It was the first time I was able to visit them in two years because of Covid. Odessa is the centre of the navy in Ukraine, so there are navy ships around, and Nato ships come to Odessa when they visit the Black Sea. So from that perspective, I guess people feel a bit more protected.
I am Russian-Ukrainian, born in St Petersburg but living in Kyiv all my life, since 1950. I’ve felt some hostility in the past [toward Russians] but it was hidden. Now it’s flourishing and really hurts. It hurts to see that between people because although I understand the hostility between the government and officials, I don’t understand enmity between common people. This is not right. 2014 was the crucial year [when the situation worsened] – Russians were regarded as personae non gratae.
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