One week ago, Kyiv was largely like any big capital city: full of foreigners, with lively bars, restaurants, and people traveling in and about.
That shift happened fast.
Now, I’m told that Kyiv looks more like the image above: streets filled with makeshift barricades, checkpoints set up to root out Russian saboteurs in disguise.
Since Friday, when those same Russian operatives rose up around the city and engaged in firefights with Ukrainians, the city has largely gone dark on social media. There are far, far fewer images of central and suburban Kyiv.
What we have instead is the occasional picture or brief video that gets through – but mostly, there’s description of barricades on streets across the city, hastily welded tank traps, and soldiers constantly verifying who is who.
People I’ve spoke with in the capital say that major intersections are blocked off by military barricades. Many other streets have been blocked off with large garbage trucks, old appliance, sandbags, and really anything that can work to impede movement and – if it comes to that – serve as a firing position.
Facebook groups that days ago were helping coordinate travel through and out of Kyiv are now empty, with any post immediately met with scolds that any information on positions could help the Russians.
Pictures of tactical positions are banned at the moment. One Irish Instagram streamer recorded himself nearly getting killed for doing just that.
Others have seen the same thing.
“Neighborhood people gave us all this—old washing machines, tires, roofing, anything they could throw out of their windows—to create this barricade,” one Kyivan told the Wall Street Journal. “We will resist.”
Sheer bravery on their part.
Updates from The Guardian.
3m ago18:42
Finland will provide weapons and ammunition to Ukraine, the country’s prime minister Sanna Marin said.
The shipment will include 2,500 assault rifles, 150,000 bullets, 1,500 anti-tank weapons and 70,000 food packages, Finland’s defence minister Antti Kaikkonen added.
Speaking after a government meeting today, Kaikkonen told reporters:
Kaikkonen hinted yesterday that the Finnish government was considering scrapping Finland’s long-standing policy of not allowing weapons to be exported to war zones.
The minister also said that Finland, which is not a Nato member and shares a long border with Russia, had given the green light to Estonia to send previously Finnish-owned field guns to Ukraine.
https://twitter.com/jessicaelgot/status/1498363194783551495?ref_src=twsrc^tfw|twcamp^tweetembed|twterm^1498363194783551495|twgr^|twcon^s1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.theguardian.com%2Fworld%2Flive%2F2022%2Ffeb%2F28%2Frussia-ukraine-war-latest-news-update-conflict-belarus-putin-nuclear-deterrence-order-kyiv-russian-invasion-live-updates
Dry British Humor:
Seems to me the Russians have picked on the wrong folk to try and dominate.
I would not be surprised to hear of Putin being unemployed in the near future.
And I would also expect that folks, if one asked anywhere in the world, would say that Putin is no “genius” as trump named him.
If only the RNC had done that when they had the chance.
¯\_ (ツ) _/¯