As civilians leave, fortress Kyiv grimly prepares
for Russian advance
Army and civilians build barricades to catch Russian
saboteurs, even if they won’t stop tanks
Shaun
Walker
Shaun
Walker in Kyiv
Sat 5 Mar
2022 18.57 GMT
An army
crane pulls concrete breeze blocks into the middle of the road. A group of
youths empty shovel-loads of sand into sacks to make sandbags. Middle-aged men
leave their families for long shifts out in the cold.
Over the
past week, these makeshift armed positions have sprung up with increasing speed
on both major and minor roads on the routes into Kyiv.
The
Ukrainian capital is now a fortress, at least partly defended by a volunteer
army of local people.
After the
first few days of shock when Putin’s war began, an overwhelming effort is now
under way to prepare as best as possible for a potential Russian drive to the
heart of the Ukrainian state. Emptied of many civilians and fortified with
these amateur barricades, Kyiv waits for the Russians.
“We
understand that these posts won’t stop a tank, but they are about finding
Russian saboteurs and preserving order,” said a 58-year-old army chaplain, who
is running the defence preparations for an area on the outskirts of Kyiv. He
sat in a boxy office in a local administration building dressed in khaki
fatigues, his Kalashnikov leaning against the radiator.
He had
plotted out the location of checkpoints in his small district to create a
network of defences that, he hoped, would be impossible to circumvent. Local
officials contacted teachers and managers to do cursory checks on those
volunteering to receive a gun and guard the posts.
“We work
with them, we train them – almost everyone is local. Everyone knows each other.
If we hear that someone is not very reliable, then we give them a task without
weapons,” he said.
Along the
highway from the south to Kyiv, the only route into the capital that for now
remains relatively safe, billboards displaying stock images of happy families
advertising new apartments or holiday destinations appear like messages from a
parallel universe. Others have been hastily replaced with posters bearing the
words: “Russian ship, fuck off!”
These were
the words allegedly spoken by the defenders of Snake Island in the Black Sea to
a Russian ship that threatened to open fire if they did not surrender. Initial
reports that all the defenders had been killed were later denied, and the audio
exchange has not been verified, but the encounter had already attained
legendary status and the phrase has become the unofficial slogan of Ukraine’s
war effort.
Other
messages on huge digital displays in central Kyiv are more subtle, asking
Russian soldiers if they want to die for Putin’s oligarchs, or imploring them
to return home with a clean conscience.
Whether or
not any Russian soldiers will make it into Kyiv in the coming days to see them
remains questionable. The Polish ambassador, Bartosz Cichocki, the last
remaining EU ambassador in Kyiv, described the city as “uninvadable and
unconquerable” in a meeting this week inside his embassy, where he has hunkered
down with whisky, cigarettes and a flak jacket.
But after
the initial attempts to seize the capital speedily, there are now fears that
Russia may do what it has done in cities such as Kharkiv and Chernihiv and
bring in airstrikes against civilian targets.
Kyiv, which
just a fortnight ago was a bustling European metropolis, is now eerily
deserted. The only sounds in the centre are the ringing of church bells and the
wail of the air raid sirens, which sound a few times a day. Occasionally, a
police car or military vehicle speeds past, daubed with yellow paint or marked
with yellow tape, the mark of Ukrainian forces.
In contrast
to the silent streets, the train station is a maelstrom of chaotic activity.
Inside the cavernous central hall, a grand Soviet structure filled with
mosaics, mirrors and two multi-tiered chandeliers, a crush of people waited to
get to the platforms.
The
Ukrainian rail service has evacuated more than a million people since the war
began, and for trains going west, no tickets are required, just patience and
sharp elbows. Women and children have top priority, then pensioners. Trains
heading eastwards depart mostly empty, while those arriving from in the other
direction are mobbed by crowds as soon as they pull into the platform.
“Look at
what they did in Kharkiv. Nothing will stop them doing that here,” said Polina,
a student trying to get out of Kyiv to resume her studies in Vienna. Tuesday,
the day after the first images of destruction in Kharkiv appeared on
television, was the start of the crush, as people began to see the “Aleppo
option” as a real possibility for Kyiv.
While there
has been fierce fighting on the western edges of the city, the centre has not
seen heavy bombardments this week, except for a strike against the television
tower that killed five people. But this grim anticipation is its own kind of
torture.
At one
metro station in the suburbs on Thursday, there were about 100 people spread
out across the platform and sprawled on benches in the open carriages of a
train parked in the station, hiding from possible airstrikes.
Some had
plastic containers of food, folding furniture and mattresses, while others
slept on the cold floor with just a blanket and pillow.
Lying on a
bench with half a toilet roll, a cup of strong tea and a hunk of bread,
54-year-old Ivan had been inside the station for eight days. He had travelled
into Kyiv on 22 February from his home town of Ivankiv, to work a 48-hour shift
in his construction job. By the time his shift was over, Russia had invaded and
there was fighting in his home town and along the route. Since then, he has
been sleeping in the metro, eating food delivered by volunteers, unable to get
home to his wife and young daughter.
“It’s a
completely impossible situation. When my daughter was born, I was 49 and my
wife was 42. We didn’t expect to have a child, but God gave us one. And now
she’s a child of war, and I can’t be there,” he said.
In the new
reality, some are trying hard to keep some remnants of their old lives
functioning. Andriy Hrushchinskyy of Kyivspetstrans, the company responsible
for collecting roughly 70% of the city’s household waste, said 14 out of his 30
refuse trucks were out on the roads, even though many workers had left their
jobs and gone to fight.
“I have a
gun and I’m itching to pick it up and go to fight, but I realise if I don’t do
this work, nobody else will, and I’m trying to persuade my guys that they
should also stay,” he said in an interview during a brief walk outside the
coordination centre from where many of the city’s key services are now run. He
said it was important for those left behind in the city to see that services
were functioning, as it was a reassuring sign that life goes on.
Handing out
weapons to tens of thousands of people, many of whom have had little training,
has led to some problematic situations. With reports of Russian saboteur groups
– diversanty – at work in and around the city, tension is high and everyone is
a potential source of suspicion.
At one
checkpoint outside Kyiv earlier in the week, a man could be seen tied up at the
side of the road. Amid persistent rumours that Russian diversanty may in
certain cases be disguised as foreign journalists, some nervous residents have
taken to calling in sightings of journalists to police. There are many reports
of friendly fire incidents.
One man
from the southern Russian republic of Dagestan, who has lived in Kyiv since
2015 and is volunteering with a Ukrainian territorial defence unit, said he was
no longer able to go outside without his comrades, because of suspicions he
could be one of the Chechen assassin groups reportedly sent into Ukraine by
Ramzan Kadyrov, Chechnya’s Kremlin-backed leader.
The man, who
did not want to give his name, said the one time he had gone out alone since
the start of the war, he was immediately arrested, had a bag put over his head
and was driven away for questioning as a suspected diversant, before his
commander was called in to vouch that he was fighting on the Ukrainian side.
“Now, my
job is that if they catch any suspicious Chechens, I get sent there to question
them and work out if they’re Kadyrov’s guys or not,” he said.
There is a
reason for the fear and paranoia: few doubt that Russia really has sent
diversionary groups into Ukraine, and there are persistent rumours of a plot to
assassinate the president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy.
Zelenskiy’s
insistence on remaining in Kyiv has amazed foreign diplomats, while his rousing
speeches and exhausted but defiant countenance have inspired many Ukrainians
over the past 10 days. In the government quarter in the centre of Kyiv, the
defence of Zelenskiy is being overseen by a mixture of the army, the national
guard, special forces and territorial defence units.
The
commander of the territorial defence unit based in a building near the
presidential administration is 58-year-old Yevgeny Ptashnik. He said this was
his third war, after Afghanistan in the 1980s and east Ukraine in 2014. He
volunteered on the first day. He said the current Ukrainian struggle reminded
him of the fight of the determined Afghans against the powerful but unmotivated
Soviet army.
“However
much we criticise Russians, they still have human feelings, they come here and
see that old people and women come out to the streets, and they will be
scared,” he said, speaking over a series of booms in the distance.
“And unlike
the Afghans, we also have a lot of modern weapons, thanks to Europe and
America.”
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