(Kyiv) On Saturday, Viktoria Lukovenko was preparing a salad for the New Year’s Eve when explosions above her head sent her rushing to safety in a Kyiv metro station.
Two hours later, the air alert lifted, she’s back in her kitchen peeling hard-boiled eggs and trying on outfits, determined not to let Russian missiles ruin her New Year’s plans.
PHOTO SERGEI SUPINSKY, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Viktoria Lukovenko prepares for her New Year’s Eve party in Kyiv on December 31, 2022, before explosions overhead forced her to take shelter in a metro station. Two hours later, with the air raid alert lifted, she was back in her kitchen peeling hard-boiled eggs and trying on outfits, determined not to let the latest Russian strikes derail her vacation plans.
“We are going to celebrate the new year with our friends,” the 18-year-old student told AFP. “I think it’s really cool that even in these conditions we can afford it.”
Saturday’s salvo killed at least one man in Kyiv and injured around 20 people, officials said. Bombings were also reported in the Mykolaiv (south) and Khmelnytskyi (west) regions.
Yet in the capital, residents battered by ten months of war have said they have no intention of altering their party plans, many of which involve meetings all night due to the curfew that lasts from 11 p.m. 5 a.m.
Filmmaker Yaroslav Mutenko, 23, was in his shower when the loudest explosion he had ever heard ripped open a corner of the four-star Alfavito Hotel, near his building.
Watching the rescuers complete the rubble-strewn street in front of the hotel, he assures AFP that he too will go to a friend’s house.
“Our enemies, the Russians, can test our calm but they cannot destroy our spirit,” he said. “Why party with friends? Because this year, it is important to be surrounded.
“Important to be here”
“War criminal Putin is ‘celebrating’ the New Year by killing people,” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba posted on Twitter.
For Kyrylo Tymoshenko, deputy head of the presidency, Moscow’s idea of a New Year celebration appears to involve “images of destroyed residential buildings in Ukraine”.
While waiting for the alerts to be lifted, residents of Kyiv crowded into metro stations. Some women have already donned the traditional brightly embroidered skirts that they will wear later in the evening.
PHOTO SERGEI SUPINSKY, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
People take shelter inside a subway station during missile strikes.
Khrystyna, a 30-year-old financial analyst who only agreed to give her first name, told AFP that she currently lives in Norway but does not regret returning home for the holidays.
“It’s always important to be here, and I think it also helps to experience the situation as it is,” she said.
Last year, his friends threw a Viking-themed New Year’s Eve party, but this year they’ve planned a more low-key gathering with fewer guests.
Dreaming of “victory”
Saturday’s strikes raised concerns about the possibility of further power cuts, which have left millions in the dark in recent weeks.
PHOTO GENYA SAVILOV, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Residential houses were partially destroyed by a Russian strike in the Ukrainian capital.
Buying fruit and sushi at a market in central Kyiv, Yevgeny Starovoytov, 45, says he has already planned a quiet evening at home, with his family accustomed to cuts.
“It even has good sides. Without light, without connection, we can play and talk,” he says, when in normal times it is difficult to tear his seven-year-old son from the screens.
However, not everyone shares this good mood.
Behind the stand where he sells caviar, Oleksiy Tykhonov, 40, laments the lack of customers.
“The atmosphere is not festive, and people have run out of money,” he says.
For the coming year, he has only one wish: victory.
“New Year’s, last year, it doesn’t matter,” he said. “The main thing is that we win and as soon as possible.”