Day 1,254 of the invasion; 31 July 2025, Kyiv, 4.30am. The air-raid alarm began once more only a second in the past. I get up from the roar and rumble of rockets. It’s a legitimate that makes you need to escape in primeval terror.
Time slows down. I roll over at the mattress, include my female friend Dasha, make some other half-turn and we drop down softly to the ground. It’s not that i am considering or reflecting, I’m guided through intuition – transfer clear of the home windows, place our silhouettes as little as imaginable. I duvet Dasha with my frame. All she has time to invite for is: “The doggie? The place’s the canine?” From beneath the mattress, we will listen the rustling of our outdated chihuahua’s paws.
5 Iskander-Ok cruise missiles are falling from the sky. One after some other. Like gigantic knives, putting between the ribs of the town. A perilous pressure that can not be stopped. The sounds of explosions are coming from other portions of the town, enveloping us in overall helplessness. There’s no hiding from this.
Two hours earlier than the shelling, I laid out my garments and positioned my emergency bag within the hallway. Simply in case. It used to be now not a rational determination primarily based, as an example, on warnings from analytical teams. However you’ll be able to really feel the shelling coming. It is going to occur these days or day after today. Hundreds of little Russians, who “don’t have any affect over anything else”, and can repeat on the tribunals the handy narrative that that is “Putin’s conflict”, have already manufactured new Shahed drones and missiles.
In line with Russia’s new ways, each night time it first sends masses of the drones to 1 or a number of Ukrainian towns, thus hard the air defences, destroying civilian infrastructure and terrorising civilians. After which Russian missiles fly proper after them and end off the town this is already bleeding out.
On that day on the finish of July, the all-clear siren after the Shahed assault sounded at 3.18am, after 4 and a 1/2 hours of explosions. After the all-clear, Kyiv citizens who have been hiding in shelters and the metro stations returned house to sleep off the hard night time. Having waited for an hour and expecting most losses, the Russians introduced a missile assault at the napping town.
Within the fourth yr of the invasion, I don’t know the way to write down in regards to the shelling of my house the town. Footage of destroyed structures on social media now not have the facility to surprise. The subject material and angles of the footage have develop into peculiar.
But when our empathy has certainly worn to the nub, why does it nonetheless harm such a lot? It hurts as it feels as regardless that the choice of Russian shellings devalues the grief and loss related to each and every assault. Russia’s movements strengthen the concept that is now the brand new normality in Ukraine.
I don’t know the way to write down about those assaults, however I do know evidently that issues have were given worse.
Statistics display that final yr, all the way through July 2024, Russia introduced simply over 400 drones over Ukraine. A yr later, in July of this yr, it introduced greater than 6,400 drones and missiles. Taking a look on the infographic that visualises this comparability and seeking to comprehend the absurd determine of an build up of virtually 1,380%, I’m misplaced for phrases.
Now there are such a lot of Russian drones that they’re dismantling the smallest parts of infrastructure. It appears like if this had been a sport of Battleship they’d have already destroyed the two-deck ships. And, after all, they’re intentionally destroying residential high-rise structures with civilians within.
We all know precisely when the location were given worse: after Donald Trump got here to energy. For the Trump 2.0 international, an unsubstantiated promise of peace is already similar to peace. However the conflict didn’t prevent for a second. It were given worse. The Ukrainian information journalism web page Texty.org.ua analysed Russian missile and Shahed moves on 12 frontline and neighbouring areas after Trump’s inauguration. Two months earlier than, the Odesa area used to be struck two times; two months after, there have been greater than two dozen moves.
The UN studies that during June 2025, Ukraine recorded the perfect choice of civilian casualties for 3 years – 232 folks had been killed and some other 1,343 wounded. Civilians had been killed or wounded in Kyiv and a minimum of 16 different areas. Within the first 1/2 of 2025, the entire choice of civilians killed and injured used to be 6,754: 54% greater than in the similar duration of the final yr.
And the similar factor is occurring at the flooring, the place the infantry is digging in. The place the frontline is. In line with the DeepState tracking staff, which analyses adjustments at the frontline, Russia has taken nearly 1,300 sq km of Ukrainian territory within the first 5 months of this yr. In June on my own, it secured a grasp over 556 sq km of Ukrainian territory. How a lot is that? Believe that during six months the Russians captured a space better than Larger London. Or in June on my own they took over the territory similar to 5 Parises.
The Trump management has introduced Russia again to the desk, beginning talks with a terrorist nation. However in Russia’s eyes, the west usually and Trump particularly continuously display weak spot. The Kremlin understands handiest energy, and if its political fighters are not able to put in force any in their threats, Russia will amplify its political, financial and informational foothold. And its strategic communications – missiles and Shaheds – will talk for themselves.
On that unmarried day in July, Russia introduced 309 Shahed drones and 8 cruise missiles. Of those, 288 Shahed drones and 3 Iskander-Ok missiles had been shot down.
I don’t know the way to explain this barrage of explosions: 21 Shahed moves in 12 places, particles from the downed missiles in 19 places.
I don’t know the way to explain the tachycardia that starts with the primary explosion and has the center drowning on this frantic rhythm for hours. There have been 159 wounded, together with 16 kids.
I don’t know the way to seek out the phrases to explain what we appear to have observed masses of instances, however each time it hurts like by no means earlier than. Thirty-one killed: 5 kids, the youngest simply two.
My pal posts a black-and-white photograph of 42-year-old IT specialist Vitaly, who used to be killed along his 18-year-old daughter Vlada and canine Spike. Iryna, a mom, and her two daughters, ninth-grader Anastasia and sixth-grader Alina, had been killed. Preschool instructor Natalia died together with her two sons, elderly 17 and 22, and her brother. Six-year-old Matviy, who have been doing karate for a yr and a 1/2, used to be additionally killed.
Our lives have lengthy since become an never-ending information feed of those losses. Our reminiscence is attempting to document the names and info, however our awareness is a black lump of ache. That is simply part of what Russia is striving for, that “No person will have to be left alive in Ukraine.”
The 31 July shelling used to be preceded through per week of torrential rain – loud thunderstorms and brilliant lightning, the likes of which I had by no means observed earlier than, and with each flash within the skies I felt my frame twist in preparation for the strike. After which I realised that that is the state of conflict by which our our bodies and awareness serve as. They’re seeking to adapt, to live to tell the tale and to arrange for the following strike. To live to tell the tale all of it, however at what shattered value?
