Brave Kiev households face Putin’s terrifying daylight air raids on Europe’s entrance line
The moment we stepped off the train in Kyiv, the air raid alert sounded.
Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband, taking his first steps on Ukrainian soil, was moved swiftly to a nearby building as Russian drones tested Kyiv’s air defences. A welcome from the Kremlin to a city under siege.
I’ve been to Ukraine before but this time felt very different. The menace from Russia was ever present, blared out by air raid alerts and sketched into the faces of the ordinary Ukrainians living in constant fear as they try to go about their daily lives.
Since the end of the summer, the Kremlin has ramped up its attacks using rapid jet-powered drones – more than twice as fast as their predecessors – leaving Ukraine scrambling to intercept them before they wreak deadly havoc.
‘Russia bombarding Kyiv day and night’
Russia is now bombarding Kyiv in the daytime as well as at night, in a bid to maximise disruption and make life unbearable for its citizens.
When I last visited on a sunny day in July, you could believe at times that this was an ordinary European city.
This is no longer the case. While people still walk their dogs, go to work, or sit in cafes outside, everyone is on edge for more ear-splitting air raid alerts.
The Foreign Secretary was speaking to a broadcast crew outside St Michael’s Golden Domed monastery in central Kyiv when the alert went off again, and we had to make a swift exit to our cars. I was briefed that we might need to seek shelter but thankfully the threat passed.
Earlier in the day we drove out of the city to Pryluky, in the Chernihiv region, where a Russian missile strike on an apartment block killed 22 people, including five children.
‘Sick to my stomach’
I picked my way through the rubble, feeling sick to my stomach as I surveyed the scene where rescuers had been pulling people out of the wreckage only the day before.
On our way back we drove at high speed under blue lights past the enormous wheatfields that earned Ukraine the nickname the ‘breadbasket of Europe’.
Trees with their leaves turning an autumnal technicolour flashed by, interspersed at jarring intervals with bombed out warehouses.
And as we left Kyiv that evening, there were power outages due to Russian attacks on energy infrastructure.
Long queues snaked along dark streets for the buses as the city’s metro was shut down due to lack of electricity, and the street lights were turned off.
Even the journey was fraught with heightened risk. Russia has escalated attacks on the overnight train from Poland, which is the only way into the country except by road as Ukraine’s air space is closed.
On my table was a leaflet warning me to be ready to evacuate at a moment’s notice, urging people to carry warm clothes and food with them. I packed a grab bag and left my boots by the door, ready to dash from my carriage if needed.
‘Support for Ukraine cannot waver’
Politicians have said over and over that our support for Ukraine cannot waver but the message can lose its meaning as this war grinds on into its fifth year.
It should remain at the forefront of our minds. The people of Ukraine are giving everything, every day, to defend their country from Russia’s barbarous attacks. With courage and resolve that is humbling to witness, they hold the line for all of Europe.
As I walked home from my local station the next day, I felt such relief – and then shame – that I don’t need to spend my nights there after being shaken from my bed by air raid warnings.
That I am lucky enough to walk the streets without the threat of terror from the skies, freed from the foreboding that gnawed me in Kyiv.
