What is life like in Ukraine right now? Inside two very different cities
- Six months into the Russia-Ukraine war and with no end in sight, Post Magazine visits Mykolayiv and Odesa to see how people are living in Ukraine’s combat zones
Two old women sit on a bench in front of their flats in a state of resignation, the ground beneath them littered with shards of glass, bits of wood and metal fragments. Every window in their brutalist Soviet-era building is either cracked or blown out. The front door hangs precipitously from its hinges, waiting to fall.
As bad as it is, the damage pales in comparison to that of a charred block of flats down the road, where a cruise missile scored a direct hit in February, soon after Russia invaded Ukraine.
The top centre of the building bears a giant, semicircular gap, as if it caught the back of the heel of a giant stomping through the neighbourhood. Metres-high piles of rubble block the main entranceway and garage doors on street level.
“I never imagined this could happen in my city. The government, all the politicians, they said it was impossible,” says one of the women, Claudia. “I’m 72 years old. My flat is ruined. There’s no compensation. When winter comes, I’ll have nowhere to sleep.”
Anna, her neighbour here in Mykolayiv, a port city near the Black Sea, says, “We have no security now.”
Anatoli, an old man hobbling past on a pair of crutches, chimes in: “The situation in Ukraine has changed the world.”
