From Kiev, Ukraine
– How many people are on the flight to Kiev?
– The plane is full.
– How can it be? With the mess in Ukraine?
– Yes, it is very rare. I do not understand anything either.
This conversation, which took place in the early hours of February 15 between two workers of an airline that operates in the Madrid airport, sums up very well the contrast between the scenario of an imminent military invasion and the feeling that is palpable in the streets of Kiev .
I don’t know if Russia is going to invade Ukraine or not. Nobody knows except Vladimir Putin. What I can assure you is that daily life in Kiev does not resemble that of a city in a situation of imminent attack.
Almost every government in the world has advised its citizens to leave the country “as long as possible”. Embassies are evacuating non-essential staff.
Seen from afar, one would tend to think that Kiev is a place where panic reigns. A city where its inhabitants would be digging trenches and putting kalashnikovs in the windows.
But for now Kiev looks like anything but. There are huge traffic jams on the highways that surround the city. But not because people are trying to run away, but because they have to go to work.
I have covered conflicts in several countries, including the Russian invasion of Crimea and the Donbass war in 2014. What struck me most regarding this trip to Kiev is the apparent normality that exists in its streets.
One example: commercial planes often arrive in conflict zones empty. The only passengers who land are journalists or NGO workers. But at Kiev International Airport, flights continue to arrive full of Ukrainians returning from vacations or business trips. And at the counters of the departure terminal there are no queues of people trying to find a hole to desperately escape the country.
Are the people of Kiev calm? Aren’t you worried regarding the Russian military deployment?
Before answering this question, let me remind you of something obvious but which I think is important to underline: this is a city of three million inhabitants. Not everyone feels or thinks the same. The only thing I can convey is the impression I have following walking around the center and talking to some people.
Yes, of course people are worried regarding what might happen. Putin has placed a significant part of the Russian army on the borders with Ukraine. That military operation has required months of logistics. Ukraine is “surrounded” from the North, from the South and from the East.
But the concern expressed by the people of Kiev with whom I have spoken is more in the form of resignation (“let’s see if Putin leaves us alone once and for all”) than panic (“we are all going to die”).
Are we on the eve of a major military conflict? Or will nothing happen in the end?
This dilemma between two extremes so different is precisely what makes the situation so strange.
Before arriving in Kiev, I imagined a panicked city preparing for a possible invasion. Nothing is further from reality, at least for now.
*From the Spanish newspaper Publicspecial for Page 12.
