in kyiv, even far from the front, war is never far away

Seen from kyiv, the front line is several hundred kilometers away and yet war is never far away. And it takes the form of vestiges. Around us, three burnt Russian tanks, a few enemy vehicles brought back from the front, war trophies displayed in the open air. Here, on Mykhailivska Square, between an Orthodox church of the Saint-Michel-au-Dôme-d’Or monastery and a university building, between the floats, on weekends, children walk around, touch cabins, strike a pose under the amused gaze of a few uniforms. “Look at the tank all flattened”, said this boy to his dad.

In the center of kyiv, the war is almost a wallpaper. Remains of barricades at the intersection, the colors of the country, yellow, blue, everywhere, on the windows, the facades. On the screens too, with supercharged TV advertising breaks to praise the heroism of the army. The iconography is polished, the warrior tone. The spots loop on all channels.

But only a few kilometers from the heart of the capital, the atmosphere is much heavier. At the Berkivtsky cemetery, a funeral takes place, as so often lately. Three men dig the fresh earth with a shovel. Aleksandr was 49, he died in the East in early September. The police notified his wife of his death ten days ago. “They came to my house, says Olga, Unfortunately, they only come in these cases: to announce the death of soldiers. They didn’t say much. They gave me a piece of paper and I then went to Dnipro to recognize the body. I recognized him. But he wasn’t whole.”

Prostrate under her hood, Olga holds the portrait of her husband in her arms. “He said everything was going well. He was supporting me. He was telling me that with his unit, things were going well. That they stuck together. I couldn’t even imagine that anything bad was going to happen to him. And now , I don’t know how to tell our son, to tell him that he no longer has a father. In a few days, he will be six years old. He is waiting for his father so much.”

On Aleksandr’s grave, as on all those dug nearby, there are no tombstones, just flags, wreaths of flowers, stapled images, photos that we imagine sent in recent months. We see soldiers smiling on their lips.