in Ukraine, drone attacks are a daily occurrence

In Ukraine, residents have learned to live with alerts announcing aerial drone attacks that are now very frequent.

In Ukraine, not a day goes by without a drone attack. Alerts ring out in the streets, on phones. In Demydiv, north of kyiv, ice and snow covered the path. For forty days last winter, the village, on the front line, was occupied. So now that they have experienced the terror, the soldiers in the courtyards of the houses, Sacha, the village chief says it, the inhabitants are ready to face anything. He tells : “The first three days we didn’t understand anything, but now we understand everything! Even the grannies of the village can tell you what anti-aircraft defense is, what it means when we talk about departure and arrival for a missile, … They have become real military experts!”

Nina is one of these babushkas, a scarf draped over her gray hair, a gold tooth that shines when she smiles, thick, calloused hands that she folds in prayer, or raises in a fist. “Of course we also sufferedshe admits. But all that doesn’t matter, we’ll deal with it! The main thing is that we are victorious and keep Ukraine. We don’t want anything else.” Suddenly she stops, surprised. “What is it? An alert? An air raid?”

“It worries us, but we’re used to it”

Everyday life, here it is. The siren in the distance, the notifications on the cell phone, warning of a new air raid. The threat is permanent, to the point that everyone here prefers to ignore it, so as not to go crazy. “The important thing is that everything goes wellNina continues. Let us no longer hear the sirens. Let there be no more air raids. You see ? You’re there and there’s a siren sounding, we don’t know what’s flying, where it’s coming from. From Russia ? We do not know.”

No one goes to the shelters for that anymore. Almost all of the dozens of drones launched every day by Russia over Ukraine are intercepted. Around the capital, the anti-aircraft defense, with its combined systems, is effective. But in the rest of the country, the sky is not as well protected, neither from drones nor from missiles. And Nina knows that. “It worries us, but we’re used to it. We worry about all our loved ones, for Ukraine, our children, our grandchildren. And it’s every day, since the start of the war, at night, at 2 hours, 4 in the morning, it flies!” However, in Demydiv, no one left the village. And in Nina’s living room, we continue to sing the Ukrainian anthem.