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Why bomb the hell out of a country’s capital when you can wear down its citizens with economic hardship, power outages and relentless air raids by deadly drones?
This, at least, seems to be the Kremlin’s current reasoning.
For me and most everyone I know in this city where I have lived and raised a family through decades of revolution and war, existence has become a game of touch and go – take it, or leave.
A friend of mine living here since 1995 recently decided to leave. He has packed up his huge collection of books and is putting his flat in the care of neighbours. He gave me a couple of warm duvets in case the winter gets tough.
Kyiv used to have a fixed and vibrant expatriate community, where in at least one Irish pub you could hear more English than Ukrainian. Most of these left when war broke out in 2014.
Almost all who remained scrambled for the West last February, along with millions of fleeing women and children.
It is hard for some to understand why anyone would stay, but not everyone has somewhere to go, much less the means or even the physical ability to get there.
Last weekend I got an early start to pick up my youngest daughter, and only a couple of Metro stations were closed. When the air raid sirens went off, most people stayed huddled on the platform, leaving plenty of free seats for us in the train.
The parks we visit that had not been hit by missiles were mostly empty, and luckily so, as there was still no heat in our flat.
When we did get home, the power was on again, so I was able to watch podcasts on my lap top, while she played games on her tablet for a several hours before things went black again.
From then on, it was candle light and a tent camp of duvets until morning.
Monday also was not bad, as I was able to supplement my income doing online English lessons for the first part of the morning. After that, either the lesson is cut short by an air raid or the power goes out again.
But there is always coffee in the park, with the proprietor of one tiny café I have discovered boasting that she has remained blackout free.
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