{"id":36145,"date":"2026-09-02T11:36:23","date_gmt":"2026-09-02T11:36:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/36145\/"},"modified":"2026-09-02T11:36:23","modified_gmt":"2026-09-02T11:36:23","slug":"the-new-normal-in-kyiv-ukraine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/36145\/","title":{"rendered":"The New Normal in Kyiv, Ukraine\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"

Thursday, August 27, was the first day of the new normal, but it didn\u2019t yet feel normal to any of us in Kyiv. \u00a0<\/p>\n

I counted 11 air raid alerts between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m. Each time, the sirens in my quiet residential neighborhood would tear through the air\u2014an ear-splitting wail, impossible to ignore even after nearly five years of war. The next sound was often machine-gun fire\u2014Ukrainian air defenses downing incoming drones and missiles\u2014or, in other cases, a great booming thud as enemy munitions exploded not far away. \u00a0<\/p>\n

Sometimes it was several hours before the all-clear signal; in other instances, just a few minutes. But by Thursday\u2019s end, the shocks had added up\u2014I was a wreck, hardly able to concentrate. The Ukrainian Air Force reported that Moscow had launched 140 attack drones<\/a> that day.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Ukrainians are no longer surprised by nighttime air alerts. That\u2019s been normal since 2022, albeit growing worse every year, with the number of incoming drones and missiles sometimes swelling to 700<\/a> in a single night. They\u2019re also used to Iranian-made Shahed attack drones<\/a> and the better-engineered Russian version known as Gerans. The Ukrainian military has developed highly effective layered defenses<\/a>\u2014electronic jamming, jet fighters, traditional anti-aircraft guns, truck-mounted machine guns, and a new generation of innovative drone interceptors\u2014that can shoot down up to 90 percent<\/a> of these slow-flying triangular platforms, generally just over 10 feet long with an eight-foot wingspan. \u00a0<\/p>\n

But Moscow\u2019s new, jet-powered Banderol drones, sometimes called drone-missiles, are something else entirely, and more than 100 struck Kyiv last Thursday. They\u2019re between two and three times faster<\/a> than a traditional Shahed. They fly much higher<\/a> and come with sophisticated technical features<\/a>, including autonomous targeting. They\u2019ve been in use for months, but not in the numbers we saw last weekend\u2014more than 1,500<\/a> Russian drones launched from Thursday through Sunday\u2014and the air force hasn\u2019t yet developed the kind of reliable countermeasures Ukrainians are used to.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Ukrainians knew this would be a challenging fall. Kyiv has been attacking targets\u2014oil refineries, weapons depots, military supply lines, and warehouses\u2014deep inside Russia<\/a> since early spring. The devastating effects brought the war home to ordinary Russians and cut sharply into the oil revenues Moscow relies on to wage the war. It was no secret that Vladimir Putin would seek revenge, and everyone knew a desperate Putin would be an even more dangerous Putin. \u00a0<\/p>\n

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov<\/a> confirmed these fears last week, noting that Ukraine had \u201copened Pandora\u2019s box,\u201d\u202fand Kyiv would feel the effects of Russian strikes \u201cevery day and every night.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

And so it has come to pass\u2014\u201cevery day and every night,\u201d albeit not yet with the weapons Ukrainians fear most. Over the weekend, Moscow fired only a few of the hypersonic ballistic missiles Kyiv is unable to down except with U.S.-made Patriot PAC-3 interceptors, which have been largely unavailable since Washington consumed over half<\/a> its inventory in Iran.\u00a0<\/p>\n

By Monday, after five days of nonstop alerts, it was clear this is the new normal. Like many Russian tactics, the bombardment follows a fairly predictable pattern. Through the long weekend, the center city was largely spared\u2014most targets were in the suburbs and other outlying areas. The majority were warehouses and related retail infrastructure\u2014a not very inventive Moscow is copying Kyiv\u2019s drone attacks on its e-commerce warehouses. But while Ukraine sought primarily to disrupt military logistics<\/a> and undermine the Russian economy, the Kremlin is focused on making life difficult for civilians. \u00a0<\/p>\n

According to Ukrainian officials<\/a>, 90 percent of the refrigerated warehouses operated by the country\u2019s major retail chains were destroyed last week. Fresh fruit, vegetables, dairy, and other essentials \u2060have disappeared from many supermarkets, including mine. Book storage depots have also been targeted\u2014a brazen attack on the Ukrainian language and national identity. More recently, with few remaining warehouses to hit, the focus has shifted to electrical plants.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Nationally, train service has snarled. A critical subway line<\/a> connecting east and west Kyiv has been disrupted, creating havoc for stranded workers and their families. One deadly strike in the Kyiv suburbs hit a weapons storehouse, sparking a fiery explosion that killed 38 civilians<\/a> living nearby. (President Volodymyr Zelensky issued a sharp rebuke<\/a>, criticizing the military for stockpiling ammunition near civilian homes.) But mostly, so far, the Kremlin seems more intent on terror than mass casualties.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cDo you think we\u2019re calling for cruelty?\u201d deputy speaker of the Russian State Duma, Pyotr Tolstoy, said<\/a> chillingly on a talk show last week. \u201cOur goal is to demoralize the public so . . . they come out to meet our troops with their little paws raised.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

I thought I had conquered my fears long ago\u2014tamping them down until I hardly felt them. After nearly five years in Ukraine, I\u2019ve found that a routine works best. You decide in advance how you\u2019re going to respond to each potential threat\u2014in my case, generally ignoring just a few drones, sleeping in a windowless room when what\u2019s incoming is a swarm of them, and heading to a basement shelter when I hear missiles. It\u2019s arbitrary and personal\u2014everyone\u2019s routine is different\u2014but it provides an illusion of safety. Unlike the incoming, it\u2019s something you can control. \u00a0<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not sure why the nonstop alerts seemed different, but for some reason\u2014at least, at first\u2014they shattered my sangfroid. One of the open-source social media channels that tracks Russian assaults summed it up perfectly: \u201cSleepless nights, disrupted schedules, closed businesses, and constant stress. The goal is simple: to make people feel exhausted and helpless . . . And we must admit, they are partially succeeding.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

The alarms are now too frequent to ignore. The pattern has been somewhat reassuring\u2014I live in the city center, nowhere near a warehouse or an electrical plant. But of course, you can never be sure\u2014maybe the next strike will be different. By now, after five days of unending alerts, I\u2019m more annoyed than scared when the sirens blare. But that too could be a mistake\u2014one that could lead me to brush off an essential warning.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Adding to the stress, no one knows what\u2019s next\u2014what the next Russian provocation will be. Moscow has announced that it\u2019s preparing \u201cmassive strikes<\/a>\u201d on Ukrainian energy facilities, hoping for a reprise of last year, when many in Kyiv and other cities went without heat or power for weeks. The Ukrainian defense industry is racing<\/a> to develop interceptors that can shoot down jet-powered drones, but there is still no answer\u2014other than American Patriots\u2014for Moscow\u2019s huge stockpile of ballistic missiles. Perhaps the worst threat\u2014expected, if it happens, near the end of the year\u2014would be a new round of military mobilization<\/a> in Russia, mustering the manpower for a spring offensive. \u00a0<\/p>\n

Ukrainians are tired of being lauded for their resilience. They think this creates an easy out for Europeans and Americans who ought to be doing more to help. \u00a0<\/p>\n

But sure enough, though it has been only a few days, many here are already getting used to the new normal. \u00a0<\/p>\n

My neighborhood streets are full of people\u2014young couples, families, clusters of teens\u2014going about their lives on a late summer weekend. On Sunday night, I was sitting in an open-air caf\u00e9 when an alarm sounded, followed in short order by the unmistakable rat-tat-tat of an anti-aircraft gun\u2014fairly close, by the sound of it. A few heads turned, but not many, and no one got up to run for cover.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Zelensky\u2019s chief of staff, Kyrylo Budanov, a popular former spymaster, made a rare television appearance last weekend. \u201cWe will not stop the war now,\u201d or anytime soon, he stated<\/a> bluntly. \u201cNot because we don\u2019t want to. It\u2019s just not realistic.\u201d No one was particularly surprised. Ukrainians aren\u2019t expecting a miracle. One public opinion poll<\/a> conducted in late July, even as Russian ballistic missile strikes increased sharply, found two-thirds of respondents \u201cready to endure war\u201d for at least another year, if not \u201cas long as necessary.\u201d \u00a0<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, for most of my Ukrainian friends and neighbors, it has been enough to find a way to navigate the new normal. It will get worse. It always does. But we\u2019ve beaten this, the thinking goes, and we will beat whatever comes next.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tRelated\n<\/p>\n

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