A Deadly Night in Kyiv Makes a Mockery of the Peace Process

It was already clear at 10:00 p.m. that it would be a tough night in Kyiv. The air alert sounded at 9:24 p.m., blaring outside and shrieking out of the state-supported app on my phone. Like many in Ukraine, I checked a couple of privately run Telegram chats to see what was incoming—the chats use open-source intelligence to give real-time updates, sometimes with a text every few seconds, showing exactly what is in the air and where, pinpointed to the neighborhood. The picture didn’t look good: already two dozen little drone icons on my go-to channel’s schematic map. But none were yet in Kyiv, so I breathed easy for now and went back to my otherwise quiet Wednesday night. 

That day, the news in the Western media was still all about Donald Trump’s efforts to broker a ceasefire a week earlier. Several media outlets were still analyzing what exactly had happened when seven European leaders, including President Volodymyr Zelensky, traveled to the White House on August 18 to try to undo the damage Trump caused at his chummy meeting with Vladimir Putin in Alaska the week before. Another story revealed European leaders were working to develop security guarantees—perhaps European soldiers at Ukrainian airports and train stations—to be implemented once a peace agreement is signed. Another shocking report detailed ExxonMobil’s secret talks with a state-run Russian energy giant about resuming business as usual when the ink on a deal is dry.  

What world are they living in? I wondered as I toggled between news stories and the Telegram chat describing the Russian drones and missiles hurtling toward me. Do they really think a ceasefire is in the offing? Have they not seen and heard Putin and his team, including Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, just a few days earlier on NBC’s Meet the Press, assuring the world that Russia wants peace even as the Kremlin doubles down on its unmeetable demands to control Ukraine and upend European security?  

Don’t these journalists and diplomats see that we’re just in a new phase of the war, likely to continue for months if not years, where Moscow says the right things about peace but keeps fighting, killing thousands of its own troops as they inch forward on the front and terrorizing Ukrainian civilians? 

Things looked a little worse just after midnight when I started thinking about bed. Everyone in Kyiv has their own way of dealing with the risk. I choose among three nighttime options, depending on how bad I think things look: sleeping in my bed, sleeping on a foam mattress in a windowless room—less danger from shock waves from a nearby explosion that could shatter the windows and send debris shooting into the room—or taking the elevator down 11 floors to the communal shelter in the basement. Tonight felt like a foam mattress night, so I bedded down in the tiny vestibule leading into my apartment. Still, just to be safe, I laid out the essentials I would take with me if I headed to the basement—my passport, my glasses, an envelope of cash—all the easier to throw into a backpack if things got worse. 

At about 2:00 a.m., a loud explosion outside jolted me awake. At first, I ignored it, trying to doze off, but two more came. A glance at Telegram told me that several Russian planes capable of carrying cruise and ballistic missiles—far more destructive than drones, deadly as the drones are—were flying toward Kyiv. I decided it was time to take the next step. 

As I locked my apartment, I glanced down the corridor toward a neighbors’ flat. They’re a multigenerational family: 30-something parents, their elderly parents, and three small children, including a baby born just a few months ago. They often seek safety at about the same time I do, but they don’t go to the shelter—perhaps it’s difficult with the little kids. Tonight, as usual, they had brought blankets and strollers out into the corridor and were preparing a makeshift campsite on the hard linoleum floor.  

I’m in a hurry—the missiles are coming—but I stop momentarily to take in the sight. What made that mother decide to bring a baby into the world in the middle of a war that threatened to wipe not just her family but her nation off the map? And what did little Adriian, 5, and Alisa, 3, make of what was happening on nights like these? Then, as I turn away, Donald Trump floats back to mind. Did he really think this bombardment was somehow equivalent, as White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt would maintain the next day, to Ukrainian strikes hitting Russian airfields, oil depots, and military logistics hubs? 

More than three years into Russia’s war on Ukraine, everyone in my tony high-rise apartment building has a drill by now, and about a dozen people sleep in my section of the basement shelter. They come in pajamas and sweatsuits and, in winter, coats. Many bring their cats in travel cases. Some try to sleep on beds constructed in the early days of the war, others on air mattresses or beanbag chairs. Still others tough it out upright on wooden benches or metal chairs, passing the long hours scrolling through their phones. It’s dark, but not pitch dark in the unfinished space, and as a rule, no one speaks. 

At about 3 a.m., I woke up to an explosion louder than I’ve ever heard. One woman lying nearby screams as she wakes, as if from a nightmare, and the big building shakes above us. (Later, I would wonder if I really felt this—though the neighbor association chat confirmed it in the morning.) Still, no one speaks. Like many, I look at my phone for information but can’t find anything—the chats usually don’t report hits until the next day. But nothing else occurs—no visible fire, sirens, or signs of the building collapsing—and the people around me gradually settle down. I toss and turn for an hour, then finally fall asleep. 

When I go upstairs early in the morning, my apartment looks fine—no shattered windows, no rescue vehicles outside, and only the usual morning smoke over the Kyiv hills in the distance. I nap for about an hour before texting a few friends. “Are you okay?” we ask each other. “Is the family safe?” Most seem shaken but unharmed, and I go about my day. 

It’s only in the early afternoon that my landlord texts me. “I read about what happened on the building chat,” he writes. “Are you okay?” What I found when I checked the chat was alarming. One video featured a tracking shot from a car moving slowly along a main road just down the hill from our building: a huge black crater had replaced the gas station that once sat against the hill. CCTV footage from the terrace in front of our building, just 200 yards above, was gray and grainy during the first motionless 20 seconds. Then the sky beyond the terrace lights up—an orange flash—and the screen fills with what looks like confetti or maybe hail. Several still photos capture the debris that hit the building facade and pitted the terrace. Other images reveal broken windows and twisted window frames, though mercifully no worse damage.  

The horrific news reports trickle in later in the day: at least 63 people are injured in Kyiv overnight, and 23 are dead, including four children. Still, life goes on in my building. When I go out to the market in the late afternoon, children are playing on the damaged terrace and squealing with delight. Even as I start to wonder if I should move to a different neighborhood, someone in the house chat reassures me: “I believe we live in a blessed building,” a tenant named Artem writes. “Last year, a ballistic missile buried itself in the yard next door without exploding, and last night was nothing but a scratch.”  

Later in the evening, I meet friends downtown, and we sit enjoying the last days of summer at an open-air café. No one knows how or when the war will end, and we all acknowledge that there will be many more nights like Wednesday. Meanwhile, even as Kyiv mourns its dead, Trump has resumed blaming both sides. Press secretary Leavitt commented that the president was “not surprised” by the attack. “These are two countries that have been at war for a very long time.” 

The post A Deadly Night in Kyiv Makes a Mockery of the Peace Process appeared first on Washington Monthly.