Ukraine: How are citizens coping with the possibility of invasion?

When Aleks and Vitalii Koval got an email that listed the handful of bomb shelters near their daughters’ kindergarten in central Kyiv, they were anything but reassured.

But taking bits of information like this and figuring out what they might say about the possibility of war between Ukraine and Russia has become part of the daily routine for the Ukrainian public – even if it is like reading tea leaves.

With 100,000 Russian troops massed along the Ukrainian border in what Washington characterizes as the greatest movement of troops since the Cold War, and with conflicting messages from the United States and Ukraine over the imminence of the threat that they pose, Ukrainians have been left to themselves to puzzle out who knows best. And their responses have varied, from denying that a war with their Russian kin is even possible, to planning for the worst – like scouting out routes to bomb shelters.

“We are very anxious,” said Ms. Koval, as she dropped her daughters off for a three-hour visit at the school. “I haven’t gone to check what these shelters actually look like, but I suppose they are not very cozy.”

Titanic concerns?

Washington fears that an incursion by Russia could be imminent, with President Joe Biden warning that one could come as soon as February. But Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has tried to dial down the anxiety, saying it has cost the Ukrainian economy $446 million since the start of the year. “We don’t have a Titanic here,” he said on Jan. 28.

The disconnect between the risk assessments made by top U.S. officials and the Ukrainian leader, a former comedian, is the subject of both confusion and humor in Kyiv.

The front page of the Monday issue of Vesti, a once Russian-language newspaper now published in Ukrainian, read “No Panic on Titanic” with a picture of Mr. Biden and Mr. Zelenskyy standing on the hull of the famous ship against a purple and pink sunset. “For the first time in the past eight years, the Ukrainian government has stood up to the United States and destroyed all the rumors of possible Russian invasion,” read the caption below.

Page 2 was devoted to the death of a famous Russian actor, while page 3 pointed to an outbreak of the coronavirus in the Ukrainian parliament and the arrival of more weapons from Western allies.

Galina Lyshenko, who works as an administrator at a shop, says she is worried because her parents live in Sumy, the northeastern region of Ukraine. They have already packed their emergency bags in case they need to flee a partial Russian incursion. Ms. Lyshenko says her risk assessment aligns with the one presented in Washington.

“I think Biden is right,” says Ms. Lyshenko, while taking a celebratory birthday coffee at Kyiv’s Independence Square, better known as Maidan. The scene of two post-Soviet-era uprisings is now a de facto shrine filled with portraits of the demonstrators gunned down in 2014. “The Russians took Crimea; they took Donbass,” she says, referring to the region annexed by Russia in 2014 and the breakaway regions in eastern Ukraine, respectively. “What stops them from taking Ukraine?”

“There is no help from the West,” chimes in her friend Vlada Shestak. “Look at the experiences of Crimea, Donbass, and Belarus. When things get hot, all they do is express deep concern and slap sanctions.”

Vladimir Tsisaruk, a used-car salesman, points out that Ukraine has been under threat of attack for years. He believes the fever-pitch tensions are all part of a Russian scheme to gain concessions from the West – such as a reduction in economic sanctions and no NATO membership for his country. “If they invade, we will react,” he says. “But we can’t live in a state of tension.”

“It won’t happen,” says Vera Danilova, the owner of a hookah bar in Kyiv and a native of the eastern region of Donetsk. “It is absurd. Not even Russia wants it. The West is following their own interest as they have for centuries. They just want to smash Russia into pieces.”

Friends and neighbors

Olga Ruzhanska bought lottery tickets at a kiosk on Monday. “The best kind of luck I have today is that we have peaceful skies and no tanks on the streets,” says the retired engineer from the western Ukrainian city of Husych, who now lives in Kyiv. “I have grown grandchildren and I don’t want them to see that sight.”

She does not downplay the risks of the current standoff between the West and Russia over the fate of Ukraine. “I am scared because there are parts of Kyiv that have no place to hide in case of an attack,” she says. “Putin is the same as Hitler. Land is not enough for him. He wants to be a god. But he will never be a god.”

But she has decided to take the president’s advice to carry on with pride rather than panic and hoard porridge like some of her neighbors. “There is nothing you can do,” she says. “If Moscow comes we will fight with everything we have, but why be scared before that?”

At the Besarabsky Market in Kyiv, several stalls sell caviar advertised as “Russian,” even though an embargo on Russian products has been in force for over a year. One vendor says in her case it is a marketing trick because tourists want Russian caviar. Another says she still manages to source Russian caviar, and that loyal customers going back more than 30 years are happy with a “don’t ask, don’t tell.”

The two vendors, who declined give their full names, say the pandemic – with the toll that it has taken on household budgets and international travel – has been more destabilizing for their business than the current tensions with Russia. And there is no doubt in their minds that peace with Mr. Putin could only bring greater prosperity to Ukraine.

“We should have remained friends with our Russian neighbor just like Belarus and Moldova did,” says Vera, one of the caviar vendors. “You can’t get rid of your neighbors.”

Back by the kindergarten, Mr. Koval believes a full-scale incursion into Ukraine, while not impossible, is improbable.

“If Russians invade Ukraine, we just don’t understand what they want to achieve, because the [Russian] economy will be destroyed by sanctions and they will get the pain [of trying to occupy a resisting] Ukraine,” says Mr. Koval, who works in finance and monitors English- and Russian-language media. “So risk-return at the moment, it’s not very obvious.”

Editor's note: This story was updated to correct the spellings of the Kovals' first names.