🇺🇦 Happy Independence Day Ukraine
All the questions I've been asked about Kyiv answered.
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I hadn’t planned to write a ‘what was Ukraine like’ piece because I’m hardly the first person to visit the country since Vladimir Putin launched his full-scale invasion in Feburary 2022.
But I’ve been really struck by how many of you have been in touch with questions about Ukraine. I’ve particularly noticed that the questions have also come from those whom I regard as ‘my normal friends’ who don’t live and breathe the news and rarely get in touch to talk specifically about my work.
I was taken by the questions you asked, and thought if you’re asking them, maybe others are too, so I’ve put together the questions and answers I’ve been asked most about Ukraine.
And I’m posting today to mark Ukraine’s Independence Day.
What was Kyiv like?
Beautiful, vibrant, chic and cool and very European-facing. The greatest tragedy of visiting Kyiv is that you truly understand how much Putin is robbing from this country and its people.
Kyiv is a seriously sophisticated city with some of the world’s most sumptuous medieval architecture. It felt like Sydney meets Paris and was easily the chicest city in Eastern Europe that I’ve travelled to. Highlights included Kyiv Pechersk Lavra — I nearly lost my mind here with how Disney and beautiful it felt.
Honestly, I felt like I was looking around for Aladdin to fly in on his magic carpet!
Another landmark I couldn’t take my eyes off was the massive Soviet-era Motherland monument, renamed Mother Ukraine, which was stripped of its hammer and sickle in favour of the Ukrainian trident after the war.
It’s easy enough to get around using English and start conversations, especially with younger Kyivites who are especially urbane.
Ukrainians have a start-up, enterprising and innovative culture. At restaurants, every table has a QR code. You use it to read the menu, but still order with a waiter; it’s when it comes time to pay that they come into their own: a scan, Google (or Apple Pay), and you’re done and can leave without the hassle of waiting to call someone over and pay.
It is a small example of how you could see the country leap-frogging the rest of us when it comes to harnessing the digital economy once the war is over.
Another example of this was Nova Post, the super reliable and speedy private delivery service that everyone uses instead of traditional post. You can send just about anything, including, as was demonstrated to me, tyres to the frontline!
Kyiv has a modern taste for Australian-style coffee, brunches and good Asian food. Coffee is stupidly cheap; an oat flat white costs £1.93 compared to the £4.50 you can pay in London and $6 in Australia.
Even its servos are super bougie. The Azerbaijani SoCars are ridiculously upscale, selling Torres crisps, artisan gelatos and so on. Sure beats McDonald’s at Sutton Forrest!
Bars are trendy, people dress up and like to look good, and in this way it felt a little L.A./Sydney. The two bars I visited were absolutely banging, Barman Dictat, an underground bar in central Kyiv, in which you could easily miss an air-raid and Saint Bar, which felt like it could be in Mayfair.
Generally, a good meal doesn’t need to cost anything more than £30 but you can eat out well for far less.
While affordability was a surprising bonus, it is Ukraine’s least relevant positive attribute. This city pulses with energy; it is dynamic, fashion-forward and super friendly.
I never made it to Russia before the war so I cannot compare but I can certainly say every Russian I’ve met abroad has been suspicious, sharp, cold and brusque. Ukrainians are the complete opposite. They love to do the talking and are friendly, quick-humoured and curious. They are always intrigued to know what you’re doing in Ukraine, and thank you profusely for coming.
Just being foreign and present is a huge deal to them — more than I realised. Two of the phrases I heard most were ‘thank you’ and ‘it shows we are not alone’. Personally, I felt a little embarrassed by all the gratitude and said it was we who should be thanking them for fighting for freedom. Rest assured, Ukrainians are deeply grateful for the international support and have a particular fondness for Britain, thanks to the early leadership shown by then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
Could you feel the war?
Caveat: On this trip, I did not go to the frontline. So the answer is yes and no.
Putin is attacking civilian targets constantly now, and it’s actually more dangerous to go to Kyiv now than immediately after the full-scale invasion.
Yet, it is disturbingly easy to move around Kyiv and completely forget about the threat of an air raid. The Ukrainians have an app that alerts you to incoming air raids.
When we arrived in Lviv at 0200 with an 0800 alarm for the next morning, there were two air raids in the space of 30 minutes. Knowing I needed sleep, I turned off my phone to silence that app after the first two. The sirens outside continued throughout the night. When one of the women volunteers who had come to collect us at the border asked how the night had gone, I told her I’d turned my phone off, and she replied: ‘You are Ukrainian now!’
Driving from Western Ukraine, one of the safer parts of Ukraine, into Kyiv, there were only a few signs of the war to be seen from the vantage of the passenger seat — the painted-over road signs that the Ukrainians did at the start of the full-scale invasion to confuse invading Russians were probably the most visible.
Of course, had I stopped at any cemetery, the effects of war would have been obvious.
In Kyiv, Maidan Square is filled with war memorials and flags, and a huge poster hangs over the building on the main street. Other than this it feels very normal.
Outside one of the main cathedrals is a huge outdoor exhibition displaying destroyed Russian tanks and vehicles used to evacuate Ukrainians.
There’s also a fair bit of military-based advertising here and there, both on road signs and on public walls. In the main designer mall there’s a whole section selling cargo-gear.
But really, the most notable reminder when there are no attacks is the curfew. Everyone must be home by midnight, and bars close around or before 11 pm. This was extremely useful for my productivity Monday to Thursday, although by Friday, kicking on to a house party felt like an oddly normal thing to do.
Ukrainians are determined to continue living, not just existing and doing so is an act of resistance in and of itself.
In the week I was in Kyiv, there was an attack the night before and immediately after I left, but never one while I was there, and only a few raid alerts all up. So unlike most Ukrainians, I did not endure sleepless nights, which has a huge effect on the city.
At 9 am every morning, the same app and loudspeakers across the city play an alert for a minute’s silence to honour the country’s war heroes. But if you’re not out and about or don’t have the alert pre-set on your app, it can be easy to miss this daily reminder of war, too.
But it was impossible to miss how many men, presumably veterans, were missing limbs. It was somewhat common to see men without an arm or leg, and it was a reminder of how much work there is to do, when and if there is a real peace deal struck, in helping Ukrainians recover, rehabilitate, and reintegrate.
Two visible signs were ones that I did not see originally.
Driving to the Belarusian border, construction teams were fixing small bridges. It looked like ordinary repair work to a foreigner’s eye, but it turned out they were rebuilding bridges the Ukrainians blew up in the early days of the full-scale invasion, to stop the Russians from reaching Kyiv.
Similarly, huge X sculptures beside the roads were actually roadblocks.
What was the biggest understanding you had going there that you didn’t have before?
The biggest one was the way Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelensky is viewed at home compared to perceptions of him overseas and in particular in allied countries, something I wrote about here.
How did you get in and out?
‘I dream of a day when I can fly to Kyiv,’ I told one Ukrainian, as we drove past the sign directing to Kyiv airport. ‘Latika, we all dream of that here,’ she replied. We both sighed.
It’s worth reminding that since the full-scale invasion, there have been no flights in and out of Ukraine because so much of the war is carried out in the skies through missile and drone attacks. Flying a commercial passenger plane through this airspace would lead to another MH17 so Ukrainians getting in and out of the country are up for a long and laborious process, a three-hour plane flight to London takes 14 hours from Warsaw, Poland, to Kyiv.
As I wrote in this piece, I went with the Tory MP Iain Duncan Smith and his indefatigable adviser Alice Stuttaford on a road trip from London to Kyiv, driving pick-up trucks for the frontline for the aforementioned Ukrainian Action.
Disclaimer: Alice and Iain did all the driving. I coordinated the Spotify playlists!
The trucks were old, had no air-con or even a radio. Comfortable it was not! But none of that mattered. It was a great experience. We left London on the Friday, went by ferry across the Channel, through to Belgium for a few hours sleep, onto east Germany the next day and were at the Polish border by around 9pm on Sunday.
It took several hours to cross the border. We were assisted by a group of Ukrainian women volunteers who drove from Lviv and walked across the border to Poland to drive the cars across.
Only women can perform this task because of the draft — Ukrainian men cannot leave the country without permission. Similarly, the Ukrainian-born Poles who met us on the Polish side could not cross into Ukraine.
From Lviv, we caught a few hours’ sleep and then went to Zviahel and then made it to Kyiv, after a breakdown, at around 9pm.
It was a long, sweltering four days.
Getting home was a little easier, although still lengthy. You catch the sleeper train from Kyiv to Warsaw, which takes 14 hours and involves two border stops and checks around 1 am. I was dreading this journey, but actually, it was quite romantic, the beds were super comfortable, and it was quite nice to sleep to the sound and movement of the train on the tracks. I would have no hesitation in doing it again.
Were you scared?
No, never. And I’m not trying to be a hero — that’s solely for the Ukrainians!
I felt excited and grateful to be in Kyiv and was extremely moved by the kindness and hospitality of their culture. From random invites via Instagram for home-cooked Borscht, to deep and meaningful chats about Ukrainian history over cocktails, a road trip to the border towns with an MP, and invitations to parties and drinks, the society felt warm, communal and embracing.
And I can’t wait to get back.