Residents and servicemen alike hunt for Russian spies in Kyiv and supermarkets battle with logistics as an extended Russian army convoy advances slowly in the direction of town.
The seventh day of Russia’s warfare on Ukraine started with the sounds of sirens warning of air raids once more on Wednesday morning whereas quite a few explosions and shelling incidents had been heard in a single day.
Maidan Nezalezhnosti, the long-lasting Independence Sq. in Kyiv, has been surrounded by barricades with sandbags and anti-tank Czech hedgehogs, as a 64km (40-mile) convoy of Russian tanks and different autos advances slowly in the direction of town.
Spanish ham, French cheese, Swiss chocolate and mangoes delivered straight from Thailand final week, simply earlier than the warfare, are left on the cabinets of Silpo, a grocery store chain, within the Pecherskyi district within the metropolis of practically three million folks.
The entire cheaper meals are gone. There is no such thing as a bread or greens, no oils of any sort, and no meat or sausages.
“We’re anticipating a supply tomorrow, it’s not that straightforward logistically,” Konstantin, a cashier in a face masks adorned with a tiny Ukrainian coat of arms, informed Al Jazeera.
Not removed from Silpo, a dozen folks stand patiently close to the doorways of a pharmacy. It snowed in Kyiv final night time, however the snow is melting, and the tweeting of birds just isn’t silenced by the same old drone of site visitors.
“It’s one man out, one man in,” Leonid Goncharenko, a 79-year-old former firefighter, informed Al Jazeera, pointing on the doorways. He wants a number of capsules and drops for his diabetes and a coronary heart situation, and can wait patiently to get in.
Apart from the queues in entrance of grocery retailers and supermarkets, the streets are empty. Individuals trickle out and in of the close by underground metro station-turned bomb shelter.
Teams of stern, gun-toting army officers in khaki uniforms and masks examine the identification of anybody coming into the station.
An identical group of servicemen stops and checks every automobile and truck. Drivers and passersby eagerly present their ID playing cards, opening luggage and automobile boots.
“There are Russian spies working in Kyiv already, they spot the situation of strategic websites, we have now to search out and detain them,” one of many servicemen informed Al Jazeera.
Nearly each condo constructing has its personal chat room in WhatsApp or Viber, the place residents trade information, suggestions and rumours.
An aged man sitting on a bench, a stranger knocking on someone’s door, a foreign-looking man taking footage – everybody appears to be like suspicious, and teams of neighbours typically rush to such folks asking what they’re doing within the neighbourhood.
“It’s our civil responsibility – to be vigilant,” Tetiana Dobuzhanska, 34, who lives in a five-storey constructing of the Pecherskyi district, informed Al Jazeera.
With further reporting from Kyiv by Mansur Mirovalev