The residents of Kyiv taking shelter in their local "invincibility station" were well aware that their own morale has become the central battlefield of the war, and it is not territory they are prepared to concede to Vladimir Putin.
The insulated grey tent set up on a street corner in the Pecherskyi district of Kyiv, one of thousands established around the country last week, was offering electricity, warmth, tea and sandwiches after the latest Russian onslaught.
"It's like 24 February, when the invasion started, and the beginning of March, when people really came together," said Maryna Honcharova, who was bundled up in a winter coat in the middle of the tent. If this was Putin's grand plan for grinding down the will of the people, she added, it had backfired. "It just makes the anger towards Russia grow stronger. We just curse and hate Russia more."
There were murmurs of agreement from around the tent. Those who had been chatting in Russian earlier switched to Ukrainian to drive home the point.
A salvo of cruise missiles had knocked out the national power grid last Wednesday, and with it the water supply for much of the country. On satellite images, Ukraine stood out as a pitch-black island. Kyiv was dark that night apart from a few public facilities and businesses with generators.
Denne historien er fra December 02, 2022-utgaven av The Guardian Weekly.
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Denne historien er fra December 02, 2022-utgaven av The Guardian Weekly.
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Finn family murals
The optimism that runs through Finnish artist Tove Jansson's Moomin stories also appears in her public works, now on show in a Helsinki exhibition
I hoped Finland would be a progressive dream.I've had to think again Mike Watson
Oulu is five hours north from Helsinki by train and a good deal colder and darker each winter than the Finnish capital. From November to March its 220,000 residents are lucky to see daylight for a couple of hours a day and temperatures can reach the minus 30s. However, this is not the reason I sense a darkening of the Finnish dream that brought me here six years ago.
A surplus of billionaires is destabilising our democracies Zoe Williams
The concept of \"elite overproduction\" was developed by social scientist Peter Turchin around the turn of this century to describe something specific: too many rich people for not enough rich-person jobs.
'What will people think? I don't care any more'
At 90, Alan Bennett has written a sex-fuelled novella set in a home for the elderly. He talks about mourning Maggie Smith, turning down a knighthood and what he makes of the new UK prime minister
I see you
What happens when people with acute psychosis meet the voices in their heads? A new clinical trial reveals some surprising results
Rumbled How Ali ran rings around apartheid, 50 years ago
Fifty years ago, in a corner of white South Africa, Muhammad Ali already seemed a miracle-maker.
Trudeau faces 'iceberg revolt'as calls grow for PM to quit
Justin Trudeau, who promised “sunny ways” as he won an election on a wave of public fatigue with an incumbent Conservative government, is now facing his darkest and most uncertain political moment as he attempts to defy the odds to win a rare fourth term.
Lost Maya city revealed through laser mapping
After swapping machetes and binoculars for computer screens and laser mapping, a team of researchers have discovered a lost Maya city containing temple pyramids, enclosed plazas and a reservoir which had been hidden for centuries by the Mexican jungle.
'A civil war' Gangs step up assault on capital
Armed fighters advance into neighbourhoods at the heart of Port-au-Prince as authorities try to restore order
Reality bites in the Himalayan 'kingdom of happiness'
High emigration and youth unemployment levels belie the mountain nation's global reputation for cheeriness
