For much of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Daria was not afraid of the shelling. Even on nights of heavy bombardment, the 27-year-old could sleep through the explosions in her apartment in Kyiv. Like many Ukrainians, she relied on the “two-wall rule”: staying safe by keeping two walls between herself and the outside world. But this year that has changed.
In recent months, Russia has scaled up the intensity and frequency of its attacks against the Ukrainian capital. In the first 10 days of July alone, the Russians launched dozens of ballistic missiles in three major attacks, killing nearly 60 civilians, according to official figures. Similar large scale attacks took place in August and September. A BBC Verify analysis of government figures found Kyiv is now suffering more daily air raid alerts than at any time since Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022.
It was during an attack one night in May that Daria realised she no longer felt safe in her home. She and her boyfriend were in the corridor of their ninth-floor apartment, watching a boxing match, as explosions went off around them, the blast waves causing the windows to repeatedly slam open and shut. When the fight ended, “there was no longer anything to distract me,” Daria says. “That’s when I realised I was really scared.” At first, she thought she would start using a nearby bomb shelter during attacks.
But in June, when a young mother was killed running to a shelter in Kyiv, Daria decided she needed to leave the city altogether. She returned to her family’s country house, 30km (18.6 miles) away in Romankiv, and now spends a total of four hours a day commuting to and from Kyiv, where she works in the defence sector. Daria’s experience is far from unique. Residents in Kyiv who say they had got used to Russia’s missile and drone strikes have told the BBC World Service the renewed intensity of the attacks is making them rethink how they live their lives.
Previously, Ukraine’s air-defence network and military intelligence gave residents a degree of predictability. Large-scale attacks could often be detected in advance, allowing people to spend the night in shelters, leave the city or take other precautions. But since the summer, Russia has changed its tactics. It has relied less on aircraft, whose movements can be spotted ahead of time, and more on ballistic missiles that travel at tremendous speed and provide little warning.
Air-raid alerts sometimes begin only moments before impact, or even simultaneously with the first explosions. Daria can see her nearest shelter from the window of her apartment, which she still rents. Even so, it takes around 10 minutes to reach it. During a ballistic attack, she might have just four minutes’ warning or less, she says.
She decided to leave Kyiv in June after holidaying abroad this summer and seeing people living “normal” lives. Since then, she has only spent one night in Kyiv. Yet, for many, leaving is not an option. Sixty-two-year-old Olha Vlasova lives on the seventh floor of a high-rise apartment block with her 98-year-old mother, Nadia Tsybina.
Despite her age, Nadia remains intensely engaged with the world. From her bed she follows events in Ukraine and abroad, discussing everything from US President Donald Trump’s policies, to anti-corruption protests in Kyiv, and the Epstein files. She’s also learned that she can often tell, simply by listening, whether a Russian missile or drone has been intercepted or has reached its target. This summer, she says she has heard fewer interceptions.
“It’s upsetting when there’s nothing to shoot them down with,” Nadia says. “I can hear them firing with whatever they’ve got, rifles, machine guns.” With Nadia confined to her bed, she and Olha cannot go to a shelter, however serious an attack is. Instead, as soon as an air-raid siren sounds, Olha covers her mother with a blanket, pushes a mattress into their window frame, and then hides in a wardrobe which puts two walls between her and outside. Nadia places a pillow over her head to protect her face from flying glass.
Once in her wardrobe, Olha will often stay awake watching the news all night. “They come in, they bomb us,” Nadia says. “You haven’t even had time to fall asleep, and there’s another alert. They come again, they shoot them down again.
And it goes on all night. “People don’t sleep, and then they walk around like zombies.” An increase in daytime attacks means life in Kyiv is now interrupted by air raid sirens day and night. At the beginning of September, when children returned to school after the summer break, there were dozens of air raid alerts, followed by explosions and fires. According to Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko, two children were injured in attacks on 31 August.
As a result, many children stayed at home, while others spent hours in the basements of schools and kindergartens. When the sirens sound, it also affects businesses and transport. Shopping centres close and above-ground metro stations suspend operations, often severing public transport links between Kyiv’s Left and Right Banks, on either side of the Dnieper River, for hours at a time. New metro operating rules during air raid alerts are being introduced in an attempt to improve the situation.
For Olha, it has meant seeing less of her eight-year-old granddaughter, who lives on the other side of the city. She knows if her granddaughter comes to visit, she risks struggling to return home. When metro services stop running, expensive cab journeys are Olha’s only option. Crossing the river can cost as much as 1,000 hryvnias ($22, £16.6), she says, just under one-eighth of Ukraine’s monthly minimum wage.
The experience has left her frustrated with what she sees as hesitation by some of Ukraine’s foreign partners to provide additional air-defence missiles. President Volodymyr Zelensky has repeatedly appealed to allies for additional air-defence systems and interceptor missiles. “They [Ukraine’s allies] wait, thinking: ‘What if we get attacked?'” Olha says. “It’s like refusing to give medicine to a cancer patient because you’re saying, ‘What if I get sick one day?’ Well, maybe you won’t.
Give it away before it expires.” In another part of the city, mother-of-two Natalia Bushkovska each night rehearses three different plans. Plan A is to spread bedding in the hallway behind two interior walls; Plan B is to move the family into the building’s shared corridor; and Plan C is to head for the basement. Even there, she admits, she does not feel entirely safe. “I keep a backpack with essential items,” says Natalia, 37.
“There’s a tourniquet for severe bleeding. I also keep a whistle, just in case. “If the worst happens, rescuers will be able to find us under the rubble.” Her nine-year-old daughter has her own emergency bag containing toys, lip balm and a tourniquet. Like her 12-year-old brother, she learned how to use a tourniquet through first-aid training.
Natalia says the constant attacks are exhausting. While her son often sleeps through them, she and her daughter wake up almost every time. “Because of the attacks, I don’t get enough sleep,” she says. “Now, in the fifth year of the war, I find it increasingly difficult to bounce back after nights like these.” The growing intensity of the strikes, she says, is taking a psychological toll across the city.
“People are exhausted. They don’t have enough time to recover.” On Thursday 17 September, Russia launched a ballistic missile attack on Kyiv. According to Mayor Vitali Klitschko, 20 people were injured in the attack. Among the wounded were two children, aged 10 and 12.
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