“I’m on the highway to hell!” a scrum of dancers shouted to the ceiling, including friends Sveta Prikhodko and Liydmila Rochina.īoth women said they have packed emergency bags in case the war comes to their city, though they are optimistic diplomacy will win out. Hip locals crammed into Zivot a Pivo, a German restaurant featuring a live band belting a mix of Russian language and Western hits, including one by rockers AC/DC. “I know what will be going on,” he said, “when Russia will come.”Īs some Ukrainians batten down for conflict, life goes on in Chernihiv.Ĭouples shuffled down icy sidewalks downtown on Saturday night, stopping to smoke and warm up with cappuccinos at coffee shop windows.
#SCARS AND STRIPES BAND FREE#
Its work will continue, he said, with extra layers of vigilance to keep documents in cloud storage and free of confiscation. The group has begun preparations to fall back in the event of a Russian invasion, stockpiling clean water and firewood to get through the unrelenting winter. In Chernihiv, Roman Avramenko has taken a more somber approach.Īvramenko is the executive director of Truth Hounds, a Kyiv-based group that investigates war crimes and human right violations in Ukraine and elsewhere. Putin’s Russia has used similar notions of ancient bonds and “one people” in propaganda seeking to blur the concept of a separate Ukrainian identity and culture.
We are the same nation,” he said, referring to Kyivan Rus, an ancient federation of Slavic people. He rejected the notion he could be in danger in the event the Russian military uses the road a few feet from a sunken fence. In a tiny village just outside the crossing, Nicholai Lebedev, a 68-year-old retiree, yearned for a return to the Soviet Union, where he said better jobs and utility prices made life easier. (Oksana Parafeniuk/for The Washington Post) He lives in a tiny village near the three-nation border crossing. And as talk about destruction reaches a fever pitch, some Ukrainians have hit the dance floor in clubs to escape a sense of dread for a fleeting moment. An escalation is unlikely, some argued, while others waxed nostalgic about the Soviet Union, which included Ukraine as one of its republics. and NATO officials debate the likelihood of a Russian invasion, Ukrainians along the highway are split on whether their homes will be in the path of potential tank convoys. “I want to prepare for the worst scenario and escape somehow, if the war starts,” Ponomarenko told The Washington Post in her apartment in the city of about 300,000 people, dotted with historical cathedrals and still bearing scars from its Nazi occupation during World War II.Īs Ukrainian, U.S. The first major town on the way is Chernihiv. Thick forests and icy swamps act as natural barriers in the region.
The road to Kyiv, about 150 miles down a paved highway, is not only the fastest run to the capital from the border, but the road is also the most practical, Ukrainian officials acknowledged. The road to Kyiv in Chernihiv, Ukraine, on Jan.
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