Inside Kyiv, a city that refuses to yield

When the invitation to visit Kyiv arrived, I felt two things at once – a sense of duty to see for myself what life looked like in a country at war, and a very real hesitation about travelling into an active conflict zone.

The invitation came in early July, when I was asked to join a media visit organised by the Ukrainian foreign ministry. After some thought, and with the approval of my editors, I decided to go.

On Sept 6, I joined four other journalists from Thailand and the Philippines for the journey to Ukraine. With the country’s airspace closed since the war began, we flew separately to Chisinau, Moldova, before continuing by road to Kyiv.

The drive from Chisinau took almost 10 hours and covered about 560km. Villages, farmland and broad stretches of sunflower fields slipped past the windows as we headed towards the Ukrainian capital.

At one point, we stopped to buy fruit and spoke briefly with residents. Some seemed surprised that foreign journalists were travelling to Kyiv, asking whether we were afraid and what we thought about the war.

Their questions stayed with me as we continued north.

For the first few hours, the journey felt almost peaceful. Once we crossed into Ukraine, however, signs of war gradually became harder to ignore, including a bridge damaged in an attack amidst an otherwise serene landscape.

By the time we entered Kyiv at around 6.30pm, the city looked unexpectedly normal. Traffic was heavy, people were hurrying home from work and the streets had the familiar rhythm of a busy capital; it was not quite the image I had imagined of a city still living under attack.

My first air raid alert

We reached our accommodation at about 7.30pm, and I was exhausted after the journey. I had barely begun unpacking in my sixth-floor room when an air raid alert sounded, followed by an announcement telling guests to head downstairs to the shelter.

The Air Alert app added an oddly surreal touch: in its English-language version, the all-clear message was voiced by “Star Wars” actor Mark Hamill and ended with the line, “May the Force be with you!”

For a moment, I hesitated. Then I remembered the receptionist’s instructions, grabbed my passport and headed downstairs, meeting two Thai reporters from our group on the staircase.

An English guest named Mike showed us where the shelter was, while the two Filipino journalists travelling with us were already inside. The dimly lit underground space near the parking area had beds, bean bags and tables; families with children were sheltering there, too, some working on laptops while others tried to rest.

The siren could still be heard overhead as alert notifications continued to sound on people’s phones. About 30 minutes later, we were allowed to return upstairs, and I found myself wondering whether this was what the next few days would be like.

A sleepless first night

At 12.24am, another alert sounded. This time I went downstairs carrying not only my passport but also my laptop, camera, cables and other essentials, having already learnt what I might need if the wait stretched on.

Many guests had settled into the shelter by then, and some were trying to sleep while others continued working or checking their phones. By about 3.30am, still more people had arrived as the warning remained active.

I did not sleep. I wrote notes, checked my phone and watched the hours pass, aware that Kyiv is five hours behind Malaysia and that my colleagues back home were already beginning their day.

At one point, my editor messaged to ask how the journey had gone. I replied that everything was fine, but did not mention that I was writing from an air raid shelter; there seemed little point in making her worry.

A city that kept moving

By morning, Kyiv had returned to its usual rhythm. Shops and restaurants opened, traffic flowed, and people went to work as though the night’s disruption had been folded into the routine of daily life.

During one journey through central Kyiv, not far from Independence Square, we saw a thick column of smoke rising in the distance. Our Ukrainian translator, Anna Pantiukhova, told us a building had been hit.

Like the other Asean journalists, I took out my camera and began recording what I could see. Around us, however, people kept walking and cars continued moving, and I found myself wondering whether fear had simply become part of the background.

Over the next few days, I began to realise that fear was perhaps not the right question. Life here had changed profoundly, but people had also learnt when to stop, when to seek shelter and when to continue.

Ukraine’s deputy foreign minister Mariana Betsa put it plainly during a meeting with us. “Kyiv is living, Kyiv is standing. Yes, it’s not easy, because it’s daily attacks, and it should not be a new normalcy, obviously. But Ukraine is very resilient,” she said.

As she spoke, explosions could be heard outside and air alert notifications sounded on phones around the room.

Learning when to move

Those alerts had become part of everyday decision-making. They could be heard in restaurants, offices and on the street, often prompting people to glance immediately at their phones before deciding what to do next.

Pantiukhova explained that Kyiv uses a differentiated warning system intended to reduce unnecessary disruption. A yellow alert indicates a drone threat, while red warns of a mass drone attack, a missile threat or a combination of both.

I experienced the difference while travelling in a van to another location. A red warning appeared on our phones, and Pantiukhova told us the city was under a mass drone attack and we needed to head for the nearest metro station.

We stopped the van, ran to the station and descended on escalators that seemed to go on forever. Several groups were already sheltering below, some sitting on the floor while others moved around the platform.

What struck me was that the metro itself continued operating: trains kept arriving and departing even as the same underground space served as a shelter.

Once the danger had passed, we returned to the surface and resumed the journey.

Perhaps the clearest example of how deeply this adaptation has become embedded came during a visit to a school. When another warning sounded, I watched pupils calmly leave their classroom, form a line and make their way towards a shelter.

We followed them underground. The shelter contained desks, chairs and even a refrigerator, and once everyone was inside, the teacher simply resumed the lesson.

For me, watching children continue studying beneath the ground while an air raid alert remained active was unsettling. For them, it appeared to be a routine they had already learnt to navigate.

Later, we asked Betsa whether Ukrainians, particularly children, were tired or afraid of living under such conditions. Her answer was simple: “This is our home. We have only one home, one country.”

The moment Kyiv stops

At Independence Square, thousands of small Ukrainian flags, photographs and flowers form a memorial to those killed in the war. Every morning at exactly 9am, the country observes a nationwide minute of silence, and users of the Air Alert app receive a notification marking the moment.

I experienced it myself one morning. Cars stopped, people stood still and I did the same; for 60 seconds, the movement of the city seemed to disappear. Then Kyiv started moving again.

Towards the end of the visit, representatives of an NGO turned the questions back on us. They wanted to know what we had imagined Ukraine would be like before arriving and whether those impressions had changed.

I told them I had expected emptier streets, tighter restrictions and a more visibly subdued atmosphere. Instead, I found a city where danger was ever-present but daily life continued around it.

Even my response to the alerts had changed by then. When a yellow warning appeared, I sometimes found myself continuing with what I was doing rather than immediately seeking shelter, although a red alert was another matter.

I joked that I felt “a little like a Ukrainian myself now”, and everyone laughed. Of course, several days in Kyiv could never compare with what Ukrainians have endured for years, but the trip had begun to answer the question I had carried with me since that roadside stop in Moldova.

People here have learnt when to stop, when to move underground, and when to carry on – leaving me to understand that resilience is not about ignoring the danger, but about finding a way to keep living while it remains.

This article was written by Noor Bakthtiar Ahmad.

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