Smoke rises from the northwest of the city. Smoke is - at this point we know for sure - a new place bombed. It is Irpin that burns at this time of the morning. The news is dizzying: Ukrainian forces recovered Moschun, beaten to Irpin, but lost Bucha, behind Irpin. Red alerts for air strikes in the capital were at least four last night. The Podilsky district, already within the city, continues to be bombed and 200 people have already had to be evacuated from their homes.
With the days one learns the logic of war. While at first all the events seemed like a product of chaos, today we are distinguishing distances, corridors, ways of possible entrances and possible exits, the timing of the bombings, the sounds, the distances. Already almost resisting being unable to encircle Kiev, the Russians seem to concentrate on the northwest elbow to get a way in. If they finally capture Irpin (they already have it, but still with resistance), they will go for the entry that will be, precisely, through the Podilsky neighborhood. Meanwhile, they open fronts in other parts country: to the south and east, that forbidden territory.
Ukraine plays, of course, its own moves. And he's getting it right. This is no longer just a heroic resistance, but also a calculated and effective strategy. Zelenski - who becomes increasingly common in here to compare with a God - does not seem to play dice either. That explains why these lines are written indoors, the product of a new confinement.
It is that on Monday afternoon a new 35-hour total curfew was announced in Kiev. No one, not even accredited journalists, can leave their homes or hotels from Tuesday at 8 p.m. until tomorrow Wednesday at 7 a.m. The reasons? Many. On the one hand, more Russian attacks on the city are expected, and it is always safer to be inside than outside. On the other hand, the restriction of movement responds to the city's own internal control protocols, which every week cuts off all traffic to clean the streets and hunt Russian spies. Around here they're called “saboteurs.” Of course none of them will be on the streets during the ban, but the Ukrainian forces need a city empty of civilians to face certain armed missions of which obviously nothing can be said.
Much of this also has to do with the integrity of President Zelenski himself. It is that his decision to stay in his work office in Kiev and not to flee fills not only with pride to the country and the city, but also with dangers. It is known that there are different mercenaries assigned to assassinate him, and the curfew - which is repeated from time to time - also responds to patrolling and protecting the president.
“He's a national hero. Already at this point he is a national hero,” says a neighbor from Kiev when consulted. “It's a fabulous example for all of us as a human because he fights with us and doesn't run away. And he fights not only against the Russian invasion, but also against the misinformation that exists around the world about Ukraine. I think it's an example for other world leaders. And for me personally it is very important that he speaks to all of us heart to heart, not in political language. That's why I'm very proud of him,” says Alona, a 32-year-old Kievite who is stationed at a checkpoint in the city, ready to defend it.
That respect for the leader is in large part what makes everyone committed to the rules and measures adopted. Nobody thinks they're extreme or unnecessary. On the contrary, the neighbors themselves intimidate others to fulfill them. In this chronicler's hotel you cannot even go out to the private parking lot of the establishment and do not let others go out to smoke on the terrace. To do so is to expose oneself: martial law combined with a curfew implies that anyone who is found on the streets will be considered “part of the enemy”. The official statements themselves say so, warning that they can shoot anyone who is transiting.
Life must then happen under lockdown for the next few hours, we've been half done. Some of those hours must be at the shelter. The one in my hotel is prepared with mattresses in what used to be the gym. Who knows what will be happening in the streets we don't see, the streets I already walk as my own, the checkpoints that I see suddenly grow or disappear, move to another corner, increase in height. To get to the Podilski district, for example, you have to cross an urban railway track that has ten freight cars stopped on the street to avoid the passage. There's only one small gap to go through, one car at a time. The militias also become familiar, although they changed their color. When they arrived they all wore the yellow ribbon on their arms, today they changed to the blue one, it is a kind of small identification code, a saint and sign to discover the saboteurs.
A new explosion just sounded. The first few seconds you have to move away from the window and take shelter, the next few seconds approach and see if there is a column of smoke nearby. Open the window, look for the smell. If there's nothing on both, it's probably far away, or it's a missile coming out. On the phone while alarms and sirens accumulate in a local application that announces all threats. A list of the latest notifications received: 11:08am, red alert for air threat in Kiev; 12:05, the Russian army heavily shelled the port of Mykolaiv, without casualties but with heavy destruction; 12:50, red alert in Vinnytsia for air threat, 12:52, red alert in Zhitomir for air threat, 12:55, Russian troops used tear gas to disperse protests in Kherson; 12:58, red alert in Kryvyi for air threat; 12:59, strong explosions are heard in different districts of Kharkov.
As I finish the paragraph, two other explosions felt very close in Kiev, with the last one came the vibration, indicating that this time it is necessary to go to the shelter. Nothing in today's Ukraine deprives you of feeling the action. The bombings of March 20 at the Retroville shopping center happened 11 kilometers from this hotel and were clearly heard in the middle of the night. The attacks and counterattacks in Irpin, just a few kilometers away, are also heard. From time to time, too, the departure of an anti-aircraft missile. Action is an unfriendly word to describe the horror of war, but accustomed to it is what differentiates one day from another.
In the hotel there is a group of people from a major NGO who asked to keep the reservation. They are mostly Kieves that the organization relocated to the hotel, asking them to leave their apartments for security reasons. They are setting up the emergency mission in the country, or rather deepening it, since they had to set it up as a matter of urgency. They're all day in a group working on computers. Sometimes an explosion sounds and they look up from the screens. They are, at this hour, the only mirror of the war out there. They don't know what will happen to their departments. Yesterday one of them came back for a few hours, after two weeks without entering. He left the hotel, took the subway, walked, looked for some things and returned to the hotel to pass the curfew. He walked out with a gray cover and a certain bitterness on his face. She didn't want us to accompany her. When she came back, she made him less sympathetic than before.
There are still 17 hours of confinement. A new red alert comes to me through my cell phone, but I have no idea where it is, I don't know the people who are going to be hit. “You learn to live with everything,” tells me the hotel waiter, who is also living here. He no longer approaches the window when he hears an explosion. What a piece of fortress, I think, that Russia built for this town.