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Kyiv sleeps in metro
In Kyiv, residents have increasingly relied on metro stations as Russian night strikes force people to shelter underground, with one account describing 1 a.m. in the city as an explosion resounded and “dozens of residents, sleeping bags and yoga mats in hand, sprint toward the nearest metro entrance.”
“In three years of war, facing the Russian night strikes, underground life has organized itself”
The same report says Kyiv has been the target of “a massive air attack by the Russian Federation” for the fifth night in a row, and it links the pattern to Russia’s increased production of Shahed and Geran drones.
The article also describes how the city’s air-defense pressure shapes daily routines, with Vladyslav and Bohdan, 30, smoking between attacks and Lesya, 24, alternating between her hallway, the metro, and a building parking garage depending on whether drones or missiles are in the sky.
In another account, Tatiana and her son Jacob cannot find shelter from the bombardment except in metro stations, where sirens define what Kyiv residents should do at night.
Al Jazeera’s report adds that some residents decided to leave for the western part of the country or abroad, while Valentina, a seventy-year-old woman, said she refuses to leave even though her son has been fighting on the front lines for three years.
Numbers, missiles, and fear
A separate report says the Ukrainian Air Force stated that Russia launched 477 drones, including many decoys, and 60 missiles overnight Saturday into Sunday, and that “475 of them were shot down or lost.”
The Courrier international account frames the strike as the largest since the start of the war in February 2022, while it also says the Ukrainian Air Force announced that a Ukrainian pilot was killed in the crash of his F-16 fighter jet after destroying seven targets.
It adds that Russia’s air attacks have intensified in recent weeks, with CNN cited as saying the assaults are larger and more frequent and executed at higher altitudes, out of range of machine guns.
In Kyiv, 24 Heures describes how residents watch Telegram channels that warn of aerial attacks, and it quotes a resident saying, “We bought mattresses, cushions, blankets and we camp in the metro.”
That same report also says President Trump promised Kyiv more Patriot anti-missile defense systems, and it includes Vladyslav’s view that “the only defense system that works is when a U.S. official comes to visit us.”
Winter strain and consequences
As the war enters its fourth winter, Sud Ouest reports that Kyiv is facing its harshest winter since the start of the Russian invasion, with Zelensky saying on social media that “about 4,000 buildings in Kiev were still without heat” and “nearly 60% of the capital was without electricity.”
“'New night of terror in Ukraine,' reports El Mundo”
The same article says that on Tuesday evening more than a million residents of the capital were without electricity after fresh Russian overnight strikes, and it warns that the situation remains difficult in the Sumy and Chernihiv regions, in Dnipro, and in Kharkiv.
It also states that Russia’s bombardments temporarily cut external power to the Chernobyl nuclear plant, and it quotes the IAEA saying the Chernobyl nuclear power plant “lost all external power on Tuesday morning due to intense military operations.”
In the metro and in improvised shelters, the consequences are immediate, with the article describing orange heated emergency tents dubbed points of invulnerability and the subway serving as a refuge during bombardments or power outages.
Sud Ouest adds that during Tuesday’s attack, Mariana Kravtchenko, 42, sheltered in the subway with her son and cat, and it quotes her saying, “They did not sleep all night: they are very tired but will be all right, they keep smiling and believe in victory.”
