On the faces of the people we pass, we cannot recognize any reminder of the war. This is only apparent when you start talking to them.
“I spent my whole life in the east of Ukraine. During one of the attacks on our house, I had to remain crouched on the floor in the ruins of my apartment for many days. We’ve been moving in Kyiv with our children for two years now, and when the bombs aren’t going off here, we feel safer here,” admits the forty-year-old Nina, who comes from the Luhansk region.
A man died at the entrance to the subway, another burned to death in a car. Novinek reporter described the night bombing of Kyiv
Foreign
She and her friend stopped in one of the cafes in the historical center of Kyiv in the early evening of a normal weekday. “We don’t live only by work. We try to enjoy every day we wake up in good health. There’s no other way, we’d go crazy here in Ukraine,” she shrugged.
Cafes are dominated by women
Several groups of women and girls are sitting in the cafe this early evening. The fairer sex makes up about eighty percent of all guests. “Fathers and their families also come here. But otherwise it is true that women predominate. The men are at the front. Others prefer to stay at home for fear of being dragged to the front line,” explained the waiter, who may not even be twenty years old.
When we talk to another girl who is waiting in front of the cafe, we learn from her that she moved to Kyiv with her parents and sister from Donetsk at the beginning of the war. “I’m waiting for my older sister. She should have been here by now. She received a deserter from her unit from Pokrovsk,” explains Julie. From Pokrovsk, for which Ukrainian defenders and Russian aggressors are now fighting fiercely in the east of the Donbass front. If the Russians succeeded, Pokrovsk would become another Bachmut according to the Ukrainians. A city of which only the ravaged apocalyptic ruins remained.
With my colleague Jiří Linka from the Zlín humanitarian organization Iniciativa Vlny Solidarity, we are also heading to other parts of Kyiv during the day. The square in front of the Cathedral of St. Sofia, which is one of the oldest church buildings in the city, is almost empty. People don’t really want to gather in open spaces. Even more of them commute through smaller alleys and disappear into metro stations, which are not only safe, but above all form the fastest transport link.
Sea of flags of dead heroes
From one of the stations we approach the Maidan, more precisely the Independence Square. Already from a distance we can see a sea of mainly yellow-blue flags stuck in the lawn. There are tens of thousands of them, and each of them reminds Ukrainians of individual deceased defenders of this country. There are also American, Canadian, Brazilian, British, Romanian and Czech flags.
There are already eleven Czech ones in this sea. They are ruled by a large Czech banner, against which a photo of volunteer Taylor rests. He died on May 15, 2023. Until then, he helped Ukrainian defenders in combat medicine and providing humanitarian aid to hard-to-reach war zones.
Last letter to Taylor
War in Ukraine

We leave this reverent place without a word. We are silent for long minutes. Tens of thousands of heroes who gave their lives for the defense of occupied Ukraine.
Before long, midnight is approaching and the curfew associated with it. Therefore, we return to one of the apartments in the center of Kyiv, only a ten-minute walk from the presidential palace, which we have to bypass a few streets further. Due to the security of President Volodymyr Zelensky, military units are guarding the area and it is impossible to get to the palace.
Explosive last night
The last night in Kyiv then lets us know that there is a war here in Kyiv as well. Sirens and explosions wake us up in the morning. Not far from our house is one of the cannons that ensure the air defense of the metropolis. We hear several explosions from far away. Air defense hit several Iranian Shahid drones. At that moment, one of them buzzed above us into the dark night. This was followed by firing from a cannon not far from our apartment. And then long minutes of alarms going off from parked cars under our windows.
A half-ton KN-23 ballistic missile of North Korean production also landed on Kyiv that night. It exploded from Saturday to Sunday after five o’clock in the morning on the street in front of one of the subway stations. She killed three civilians and seriously injured three others. However, life in the city continues to pulsate.
Three people died in Kiev during the Russian attack
War in Ukraine

Maintenance worker – the most respected profession
After the explosion of the rocket, the most work is now always waiting for the maintenance man. Re-glaze the windows, check gas, water, and electricity connections in cracked nearby houses, repair roads, sidewalks.
“In addition to soldiers and units of the integrated rescue system, maintenanceman is one of the most respected professions in Ukraine during the war,” said an elderly man laconically to the men who had already started cleaning up the damage after the rocket explosion. He lives in an apartment building, in which its residents now have to change their windows for the third time since the beginning of the war.
Rubber giant Mitas is paying extra for the war in Ukraine and sanctions against Belarus and Russia
Homemade
