Like most street violence, everywhere, it happens quickly and without warning.
I’m talking to a young man named Konstantin, who is queuing up with a few dozen other Kyivites – mostly middle-aged women – in front of a supermarket on Velika Zhytomyrska Street when there is a sudden commotion.
Constantine, tall and wiry, rushes past me, catching another man hanging on the edge of his tail.
The man is small and wiry and has two very blackened eyes over Covid’s mask.
Constantine hits the already battered face of the man in the nearby brick wall and then in the glass face of the supermarket, which shakes but does not break.
While I’m trying to keep Constantine – what the hell is he playing? – more men come running. The human box is placed in a hand lock and taken to the nearest military checkpoint.
“He’s a stranger and he was trying to listen to your conversation,” one of the older ladies in the queue explained to me in English. “He may be a Russian spy.”
If so, this secret agent is more Mr. Bean than James Bond, but who knows in these strange times?
Suspicions are mounting in a city prepared for war. Here, a man was grabbed by nervous locals at a local supermarket after an elderly man raised an alarm. It was handed over to soldiers
Scenes of Kyiv’s preparations for war: Some of the few that remain are queuing up to open a local supermarket where there is still food
Daily Mail writer Richard Pendbury talks to Ukrainian composer Roman Zagorodniuk at Buena Vista Café in downtown Kyiv as soldiers search vehicles outside
When I woke up yesterday morning, I found that the weather forecasters were right: a day with periodic sunshine and Russian shelling. The snow has melted and spring is on the way. But so is Putin’s army.
The psychological screw, as shown in the scene described above, turns. Kyiv is on the edge of a knife and it is difficult not to be affected.
It was another restless night of distant and not so distant crashes, blows and air raid sirens, during which – if I’m awake and worried enough – I sit fully clothed in the toilet (no windows, so there is no danger of broken glass) and listen a podcast for the historical novels of Patrick O’Brien. It’s called an escape.
Elsewhere in the city, Mail translator Lara is also in her own bathroom without windows. She spends all night in her bathtub, alternating with her boyfriend to sit at the end of the tap. The eternal dilemma for couples everywhere.
Only if the shocks are very close will they go down to the basement bomb shelter. Otherwise she, I, we would all live here like a troglodyte. This has not yet happened. But soon it can.
Many of the city’s homes are already deprived of children sent to safer places. There is some good news from a family I met on the subway platform at Central Station on Thursday.
Daily Mail writer Richard Pendbury talks to an armed policeman, part of the city’s defense forces, in front of St. Michael’s Convent
Destroyed Russian armored vehicles in the city of Bucha, west of Kyiv, which has been under heavy attack in recent days
A woman makes her way through the ruins of a destroyed school in the city of Zhytomyr, 80 miles west of Kyiv, as Russia resumes its attack on the country for the ninth day.
Data analyst Alexander contacted me to say that he had managed to take his wife Lisa and two young daughters on a train to Poland.
“Today is Lisa’s birthday and I wish I could be with her now,” he wrote. “But I couldn’t wait any longer.” [to move them] due to the indiscriminate bombing of Russian forces in Kharkov, Chernigov and Mariupol. I couldn’t forgive myself if something happened to them.
Alexander stays here to fight as part of a territorial defense squad.
Later we will take a taxi to a car mechanic named Jan. He had left his wife and 20-month-old child at Central Station and then returned home to park his car. Now he was returning to the station to remove them. He also remains to fight.
Not everyone is so organized. To maintain access, city officials are pulling out cars parked around the station – abandoned by their owners who boarded trains from Kyiv, they may never return.
The hotel where I stayed is close to the Cathedrals of St. Sophia and St. Michael. I am doing impressively, although staff levels have fallen as some leave to fight or go to Poland and safety.
On my floor, my neighbors do not pay the residents, but waiters, cleaners and cooks, who will stay at work all the time. This is part of the national effort. They want people like me here to report on what is happening in Ukraine.
There are now only two meals, breakfast and lunch, although the latter lasts until 18:00 and is buffet style, not à la carte.
But the choice is good – yesterday we were offered borsch soup, meatballs in tomato sauce, chicken kebabs, salads and a selection of bread and cakes with fruit juice.
The sale of alcohol is prohibited and bars are closed. In the evening, I use FaceTime to be with my own family in London while eating – last night, fish pie and chocolate pudding. My daughters are old and engaged enough to know and be concerned; what happens when i will be back
The situation in Ukraine attracts their attention like no other previous war I have covered, not even Afghanistan. This is shocking.
The sirens are ringing again. Farther towels. We go back outside and walk along a deserted street in Velika Zhytomyrska. If you can rent an apartment here, you are doing well in the Ukrainian eyes.
Our journey takes us past closed fashion boutiques and designer furniture stores – and a poster with a lost cat promising a reward – until we reach a military checkpoint in front of the Buena Vista Café.
An agricultural tractor pulls a trailer up and down the highway, leaving timber for blockages as Kyiv prepares for what lies ahead. One element of the makeshift chicane outside the cafe is an upright piano. Will this really stop a Russian tank – or something bigger than a shopping cart?
Russian armored car stands on the street with broken military vehicles after several attacks trying to capture the city of Bucha
Ukrainian troops are hiding from Russian shelling in the city of Bucha, west of Kyiv
People are hiding from shelling in the city of Bucha, west of Kyiv, during a Russian attack to try to capture him
A man walks in front of a residential building damaged in yesterday’s shelling in the town of Chernihiv on March 4
House on fire after the shelling of the city of Irpin, 26 kilometers west of Kyiv, on Friday
Dog wanders through the wreckage of Russian armored vehicles left on the streets of Bucha, near Kyiv
Until last week, the cafe was a thriving hub for this hipster neighborhood. There is a live music and dance floor in the damp, unplastered basement. In one busy night, 200 revelers would be crammed inside. Now it is a canteen bomb shelter for staff and locals.
When I push open the door, there is only one customer who is breastfeeding coffee on the window seat. Composer Roman Zagorodniuk, who lives nearby, is well known far beyond Ukraine. He has created music for films and documentaries with actors such as Morgan Freeman and Michael York.
On his phone, he plays me a new work that he has composed in the cafe for the past five days, against the editing of images of the Russian invasion and the Ukrainian challenge. He is 62 and looks a lot like actor Robert Carlisle. He told me he had a niece, Victoria, in London.
His family has left Kyiv, but he remains. “I am a citizen of this country,” he explained. “Everyone should ask what they can do to help Ukraine. Now we are all equal in this severe crisis. But this is not just about Ukraine. We are the protective shell of Europe, the front line against tyranny.
“I will probably go to Europe too, but only after the war is won. Then I will cross the border on a white horse, not a refugee train.
As we leave the cafe, a huge but distant explosion echoes down the street. The sidewalks are empty and most shops are closed, but the deli is still open and advertising “flat white”.
We buy some canned tuna. The owner says he is doing his best, but it is difficult to find fresh produce.
Then we come to a queue in a supermarket. Two women tell us they have been waiting for half an hour for the store to open.
“I want something delicious!” Says one. “We have nothing, I need the basics,” confides her friend.
At that moment, a sharp detonation is heard, such as cannon fire or a grenade exploding down the street. Nobody flinches. Nobody knows what it is.
Poor Kyiv, her nerves are strained. The end, whatever it is, is approaching every day.