After five hard weeks in which Kyiv become a city of checkpoints, empty streets and Russian attacks, there are signs the Ukrainian capital is coming back to life.
Kyiv remains a fortified city of sandbags and tank barriers, barbed wire and trenches, military vehicles and plastic crates of Molotov cocktails, but it is trying to re-open.
While it may be too soon for a victory parade in Maidan Square, with Russia’s hopes of capturing Kyiv apparently fading, locals said normalcy was beginning to return. Read more: Inside Kharkiv, a city once close to Russia comes under daily bombardment “The city is alive,” said Sasha Chengova, who runs Blur Coffee, which shut down when the war began and has since re-opened. “More and more places are opening, and more and more people are coming back.” She expected more customers “because we have a lot of people who are missing the city and want to be here,” she said.
In a nearby gourmet food store, staff stocked shelves with wine bottles on Friday. A ban on alcohol sales imposed by the Ukrainian government at the start of the war ended at 11 a.m.