My friend, a neurosurgeon called Andrii Myzak, recently sent me a WhatsApp from Kyiv. “We are in pitch darkness in the evenings now. Only cars passing by illuminate the buildings and pavements with their lights.” Such is the result of Vladimir Putin’s cynical decision to target power stations across Ukraine. The drone and missile strikes have increased in frequency too. Six or seven air raid alerts yesterday, says Myzak, each necessitating hours spent huddled in the nearest bomb shelter. Normal life doesn’t stand a chance.
I was in Kyiv myself in October, having travelled to Ukraine to support and train doctors providing palliative care to patients approaching the end of their lives. My trip was curtailed by Putin’s brazen desire to rain terror on civilians. As our night train pulled into Kyiv central station, the buildings reverberated with the impact of missiles timed to maximise rush-hour bloodshed. One victim was a young children’s cancer doctor. Her car was incinerated as she drove home from her hospital night shift, making an orphan of her son, aged five. Another missile left a 30-foot crater in a children’s playground – as though roundabouts and sandpits have a shred of strategic value.
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