Kyiv under fire

The night before last Russian missiles targeted Kyiv’s central government building for the first time. Another night of terror: when will it end?

You had set the alarm for 5.30am to be in good time for the Kyiv-Kharkiv train, but it is not yet 2 am and the night is pierced by sound. Everyone else in the apartment sleeps on, so used to the wail of the air alarm, or so tired, that it fails to disturb them at all. You fall back asleep too, until around an hour later the shooting starts outside, the rapid boom of air defence loud and persistent in the skies. How can my friends sleep through this, you wonder, with the windows flung open in the late summer heat - but they do.

You fumble for the phone, tangled in the quilt, and check the news feed. A record number of drones are flying around, and some parts of the city have been hit. Some 20 people were hurt in this attack, and tragically, a young mother and her one year old baby were killed under rubble when their block of flats was set ablaze. But not this building. Not this time.

At 5.30 the alarm clock goes off, but you are only just getting into the shower when it is joined again by the air alarm howling outside. You check the news feed again and it says that now a group of Russian missiles are flying to Kyiv. Will I still be able to get a taxi to the train station, you ask your friend, who has got up to help with your bags. Oh yes, he says, of course - it might just be a bit more expensive.

There is the rumble of an explosion, low and heavy. You message your friend from the lobby of the apartment building: ‘Maybe not the best time to be driving outside?’ ‘Weeeeell’, your friend replies, ‘stay in the lower levels of the station maybe. Anyway the current missile seems to have been shot down.’ Thumbs up emoji.

As you wait in the lobby for the cab there is another explosion, louder, longer. The cab arrives and as you glance out of the window on the journey through the near-deserted streets, you can see a large dark grey cloud of smoke rising somewhere nearby. Later it emerges that the attack hit the central Government building right in the heart of the city. There are flames on the top floor of the Kabmin, the Cabinet offices, it is the smoke which you saw from the car. You give the driver an extra tip when you arrive.

The main railway station building is closed because of the missile alert but passengers are directed to the side entrance where you can stay in the tunnel below. It is crowded with people, waiting for trains or sheltering from the alarm: but your train is already at the platform and so you climb up the steep flight of stairs to find your carriage and take your seat.

Exactly on time, the train to Kharkiv pulls out of the station and you turn to look out of the window. The sun is a ball of red-gold, rising gently through the dawn, only after this long night of attacks, the sky over Kyiv is streaked with clouds of smoke and fire.

A couple of hours into the journey, the public address system sounds on the stroke of nine: it is the nationwide minutes silence, held daily to remember those who gave their lives in the defence of Ukraine. You stand with the other passengers at their seats, their heads bowed. The train sways gently past fields of wheat, dappled in sunlight. The tick-tock on the public address system ends: there is a collective murmur of ‘heroyam slava’, glory to heroes, and you continue onwards, eastwards towards the city of Kharkiv.