Ukraine: The Ukrainians I met are not about to give up – Clive Myrie

Ukraine – The BBC’s Clive Myrie, who has left Ukraine, reflects on the indomitable locals he met in Kyiv – convinced they would defeat the Russians.

I didn’t really see her face, but at her feet were several cooing pigeons. Every now and again, a shower of birdseed would tumble from her hand. She was wearing a heavy-looking grey coat, keeping out the late morning winter chill. I motioned to my colleague, cameraman David McIlveen, to try to take her picture – but she sensed he was approaching, emptied the brown paper bag of birdseed and briskly walked away.

It was the first time in 48 hours that I had left our lodgings – a basement car park in the heart of Kyiv which had become a makeshift bomb shelter. A weekend-long curfew had been imposed after Russian troops had invaded the country. There were a real fear foreign saboteurs were moving among the population and anyone caught outdoors would have been arrested.

You could see the nervousness on the faces of the Ukraine soldiers and partisans manning checkpoints, despite the black balaclavas shielding them from the cold. Their eyes told stories of apprehension, concern, worry and existential threat. Russian spies might be plotting routes for incoming troops, or smuggling weapons into the Ukrainian capital, or simply there to somehow sow seeds of discord among ordinary people to break local unity.

The city was awash with rumour and dread. Who might that be in the bomb shelter next to you, who is listening in to your conversation in the bread queue? Best stay indoors and observe the curfew.

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The Ukraine woman feeding the pigeons would have spent the past two days in her own basement as well, and I thought it was interesting that one of the first things she did was to feed the pigeons – as if nothing was awry. An ordinary day out, a bit of fresh air, with no threat of death from above.

Prepared to die

A few other people were on the streets, queuing outside a supermarket that had little on its shelves. Most people were shuttered at home. Villages, towns and cities across the land saw a vanishing, as citizens descended underground to subterranean worlds of refuge.

Vladimir Putin professes to know what the 40 million-plus population of this land want. A few days among these people would have told him much more than he seems to understand.

Source – https://www.bbc.co.uk/