In Kyiv and beyond, people carry on with the festive season despite rhetoric about imminent conflict
, but in Kyiv the city council is putting up Christmas trees rather than bomb shelter notices, and organising concerts rather than army recruitment drives.on Ukraine’s eastern border and in annexed Crimea, hostile rhetoric between Russia and the US and its allies is edging towards a cold war high, with Ukraine the battlefield for any actual fighting.
Earlier this year the Russian troop buildup on the border began to invoke the spectre of impending invasion, inspiring Simbirova’s mother to announce she was moving to Spain to be safe. The invasion came to nothing at that point, and her mother stayed in Ukraine. More recently, at a November press conference, the Ukrainian president,
“I haven’t packed a suitcase,” Burdiyan said. “Because I didn’t pack one back then either.” Burdiyan, 49, is from Donetsk in east Ukraine, now under de facto Russian control after fierce fighting in 2014-15. Seven years ago, unable to believe in a war that was already raging, she was the last in her street to tape over her windows against shelling. She left the city in July 2014 on the last train out before the railway line was destroyed.
“They’re planning lots of concerts. City hall is trying to make Mariupol an example of security and cultural development of Ukrainian towns, in contrast to towns on the other side of the frontline,” said Galyna Balabanova, an activist and project manager in Mariupol.
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