from our special correspondent in Ukraine – Daryna, 25, entered adulthood in a country at war. Since Russia’s full-scale invasion, her days have been shaped by air raid alerts, power outages and nights spent sheltering in the subway. Despite the uncertainty that shadows every day, she is determined to preserve a semblance of normal life in Kyiv. FRANCE 24 met a young woman who has become emblematic of a generation learning to live under daily bombardment.

Issued on: 09/11/2026 - 10:10

Daryna grew up before her time, far too quickly. War gave her no choice. The Kyiv resident was barely 21 when Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Nearly five years into the conflict, she is clinging, as best she can, to what has become a dystopian version of normal life.

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“Some foreigners think tanks are rolling through Kyiv, that the city is an active frontline,” says the striking young woman. “Others look at my life on social media and think I live a perfectly normal life because I go to the gym, read books and go out on weekends. But my life is not normal at all.”

Living in a 19th-century building in the bohemian district of Podil, Daryna has carefully curated her apartment.

“I chose it because it was beautiful, historic and so different from the Soviet-era buildings and apartments I grew up in,” says the Rivne native from northwestern Ukraine. “I wanted to make it as beautiful as possible because it’s important to surround yourself with beauty and things that bring you comfort during wartime.”

In the spacious living room with its green walls, culture is everywhere: art books, novels, copies of the iconic American magazine The New Yorker, and music – lots of music.

An impressive vinyl collection, neatly stacked in a wooden crate, rests on the polished hardwood floor beside an electric piano. A small speaker fills the room with the haunting voice of Radiohead’s singer and songwriter Thom Yorke.

“When I think about all my books, my records, my piano, and the possibility of losing everything in an explosion, it makes me incredibly sad,” says the young woman, whose hazel eyes are tinged with melancholy. “Some people started buying fewer things when the war began. At first, I did the same. But eventually I realised I needed more things around me to make this place feel like home.”

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Seated comfortably in an old wooden armchair, Daryna recounts how a friend’s apartment, just a few streets away, was damaged in an explosion a few days earlier.

“It was a street people considered safe. A drone crashed into the garden and then exploded. The blast wave blew out the windows. She’s had everything repaired, but she’s still finding shards of glass everywhere,” she says, before breaking into laughter.

“Honestly, I think being a glazier is probably the most profitable business in Ukraine right now.”

Daryna breaks off mid-sentence. A notification sounds. Her phone emits a shrill alert. “There’s an air raid alert. It’s a yellow alert, which means Kyiv is being targeted by drones. I think we should check where they’re headed,” she says, scrolling through her Telegram messages. “Oh, they’re only heading towards the city centre. It should be fine, I think. It’s not very close.”

Setting her phone aside, the cybersecurity journalist resumes her explanation. “We also have red alerts, which mean there is a risk the city could come under missile attack. When the war began, there were only red alerts. They applied to both drones and missiles. But recently, the authorities changed the system to distinguish between the two. It’s very useful because it gives people a better sense of how concerned they should be and what level of anxiety they need to prepare for.”

These alerts happen at any hour of the day or night, and last between a few minutes and several hours. Their arrival is announced by air raid sirens blaring from loudspeakers across the city. Residents are advised to seek shelter as quickly as possible.

“For a while, I slept in my walk-in closet. I moved my mattress and pillows in there. But one night, during an explosion, part of the ceiling fell on my head. I also tried sleeping in my bathtub, but that proved dangerous too because there’s a mirror in my bathroom. Since then, I’ve mostly slept in the hallway, which is considered the safest place in the apartment.”

It's constant psychological strain, one that grows heavier by the day. Some red alerts are more terrifying than others.

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On October 21, Kyiv residents endured a night of terror. Russia launched three waves of 21 missiles targeting residential buildings, energy infrastructure and shopping centres.

Many residents made their way to shelters, underground parking garages and subway stations. Others remained huddled in their homes, feeling the walls shake, waiting for the shock waves and listening to the explosions.

Kyiv has become nearly as dangerous as cities closer to the front line. It is a deliberate Kremlin strategy aimed at sowing panic and, potentially, triggering a mass exodus from a capital it failed to capture in the early days of the full-scale invasion in 2022.

While fear and exhaustion can sometimes be read on people’s faces, many Ukrainians no longer even react to the piercing sound of air raid alerts. It is an attitude that can surprise outsiders, even unsettle them.

But how can people keep going to shelters when the alerts come one after another? They still have to work, study or simply sleep.

Danger has become woven into the fabric of daily life. This coping mechanism helps mask a threat that remains very real.

The comfort of carrying a book, even without reading it

Like almost every Ukrainian, Daryna has spent nights in the subway – more than once.

“I keep an emergency bag permanently packed in my wardrobe. It has my ID documents, some cash, snacks and water, a blanket and a small pillow. Most of the time, I also try to bring a book with me, even though I never actually read in the metro because it’s too uncomfortable. But just having it with me makes me feel better. I also have a sleeping bag if I’m planning to spend the night in a shelter, whether during an attack or before one begins.”

Images of Kyiv’s metro, one of the capital’s main refuges, have flooded social media since the start of the war. Mattresses, pillows, sleeping bags and now even tents. Residents often head underground before curfew, but they must wait until metro services have ended before settling in for the night.

“We try to preserve some privacy, but some stations are simply too small. When I arrive late, it’s really difficult to find a place to settle.”

Coexisting in such close quarters, with little personal space, is not always easy.

On busier nights, people must contend with videos playing without headphones, phone calls on speaker, the cacophony of incoming air raid alerts ... and the sound of alarm clocks going off.

“The war has made me realise just how much people can adapt and how quickly those things become part of their routine – like sleeping in the subway or in a shelter,” Daryna says.

“Sleeping in a shelter, or not sleeping at all in your apartment because of the strikes, affects you both physically and mentally,” she adds. “Going back to a normal life afterwards can be difficult, but it’s not as if we have a choice. The attacks happen every day, and we simply have to keep living. It has become part of our routine, part of our reality.”

As the late October afternoon draws on, a chill begins to settle over the Ukrainian capital.

A small electric heater warms the air in the spacious living room. In Kyiv, power cuts are a daily occurrence, with rolling blackouts imposed district by district according to schedules that are, at best, unreliable.

“They’ve just switched the power back on. I have no idea how long it will last. We’ve had outage after outage. The schedules rarely hold. The electricity can go out at any moment or stay on for several hours. A few days ago, I only had power for two hours. The outage lasted 24 hours. It was very hard.”

In Ukraine, cold has become a weapon. The winter of 2025-2026 was the harshest since Russia’s full-scale invasion. Massive Russian strikes on energy infrastructure triggered severe power shortages, depriving Ukrainians of electricity and heating.

Inside homes, radiators connected to Soviet-era heating networks remained desperately cold as temperatures plunged to as low as -27°C in the capital and -30°C in some parts of the country. The conditions were enough to drive many residents out of Kyiv.

“I hope this winter won’t be as cold as the last one. I had no heating in my apartment and the temperature inside dropped to 9°C. I barely survived, even though I wore thermal clothing all the time.

“I genuinely thought I was going to freeze to death. I even promised myself it would be the last winter I spent in Kyiv. Obviously, that hasn’t happened.”

On September 22, following a meeting with US President Donald Trump during the UN General Assembly, President Volodymyr Zelensky proposed an “energy ceasefire” with Russia, contingent on reciprocity.

So far, the proposal has gone nowhere. As a result, a similar scenario appears likely to unfold this winter. The deliberate targeting of civilian infrastructure is nevertheless considered both a war crime and a crime against humanity, according to an independent UN commission.

‘Part of your personality disappears’

Daryna has learned to make the best of a difficult situation. To put on makeup or get dressed, she relies on a headlamp. For light, she uses candles or a rechargeable table lamp. She has also invested in a portable power station.

“It’s very expensive [editor’s note: more than 57,000 hryvnias, or around €1,300 at peak demand, equivalent to more than two months of the average salary in Ukraine or nearly eight times the country’s minimum wage,], but it helps enormously. I think most Ukrainians my age have one.

“You can plug in your router and keep Wi-Fi during power cuts. It’s more than enough to charge a laptop and my phone. I also have several power banks,” says the Kyiv resident, who works from home.

But when she has to choose which devices to charge, it is her electric piano that takes priority. Daryna treasures it above all else.

“I still play during power outages. It helps a lot because it keeps me occupied and allows me to do something purely for myself,” she says. “When you live through a war, you can feel the difference between living and surviving. Sometimes, you have to do both.

“Being without electricity or running water, sleeping in a shelter, not having access to the food you love, or need, or simply crave, that's surviving. But going to a party, going to the gym while drones are exploding outside, choosing to do ordinary things, that's living.

“You have to find the right balance. In Ukraine, we have this expression: war-life balance. It's become a cliché by now, but we still use it because finding that balance between war and life is incredibly important.”

As for the prospect of a ceasefire with Russia, Daryna does not believe in it. Not now, and certainly not while Vladimir Putin remains in power.

“Russian influence is so vast and so deeply entrenched. It’s not something you can simply erase with a ceasefire or any kind of agreement,” she says.

“I don’t think a ceasefire would immediately make our lives easier. It would simply be a pause for everyone. Even when the war ends, regardless of how it ends, there will still be so much to go through before we can return to a life that anyone could call normal. I’m not sure my generation will ever have a normal life.

“War takes so much from you. Everyone will have experienced loss, whether the loss of loved ones or of everything they owned. And even if they haven’t, part of your personality disappears. You become an entirely different person. Rebuilding Ukraine into what it was before the war will be difficult.”

Daryna grew up too fast, long before her time. The Ukrainian woman who survives this war will no longer be the same person. Who was she before the war? She no longer knows. Who will she be afterwards? She does not dare to think about it.

“It scares me. Making major decisions, planning my future, imagining what comes next, all of that is difficult. It seems so easy for someone who isn’t living through a war. A European or an American my age can plan a holiday for next spring or summer.

“I don’t even know how my evening will end. That depends entirely on how effective our air defences are.”

This article has been adapted from the original in French with the help of AI.

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