An open-air concert… and heroics of a band of renegades: RICHARD PENDLEBURY watches attempts by Kyiv residents to recreate a ‘normality’ amidst the horror of war

• We are invited to an al-fresco concert on Andreevsky Descent. A woman sings
• The next performer is a member of the territorial defence and dressed for battle
• But the war cannot be ignored. Sounds of heavy bombardment wake the city

A note was slipped under my bedroom door the other day. The first from the hotel that did not concern the war. Previous messages have urged food conservation at mealtimes – ‘Please take only so much as you can eat’ – or set out restrictions imposed under martial law. No filming Russian bombardments from the roof, lest you assist the enemy’s aim.

This one is more upbeat: ‘Please be informed that as of Sunday, 3am, Ukrainian time, the whole country will shift to summertime.’ Up to a point.

As I write this it is snowing outside. Earlier there was an inexplicable sandstorm which covered the cobbles. But there are reasons to be cheerful. Or, at least, there are attempts by Kyivans to recreate something like ‘normality’ at the start of this second month of conflict.

In between snow and sand, a man is strimming a hedge below my window. It is a strangely uplifting sound – redolent of a sleepy, suburban August – in this emptied city, of silences broken only by sirens, explosions and small-arms practice in nearby parks.

Performers, including a volunteer in military fatigues, play to pedestrians in Central Kyiv

Ukrainian volunteer Defence Force fighter Maxym, pictured (with beard) and a colleague with a destroyed Russian tank on the front lines surrounding the capital Kyiv

We are invited to an al-fresco concert – perhaps the first of the war – on Andreevsky Descent. A woman called Vlada sings a lament at an electric piano. Inevitably the air raid sirens begin, but she does not stop and a saxophonist joins in to help defy the apocalyptic wailing.

The next performer is a member of the territorial defence units, dressed for battle in his combat fatigues. He has a sweet, soulful voice and a sentimental repertoire: ‘When I look at those marigolds/ I can see my old mother/ I can see your hands my mama.’ Those tears in the eyes of the audience? Grits of flying sand, honestly.

Another café has reopened on historic Velyka Zhytomyrska Street. Bebop jazz is pouring out of the front door as we pass. The nearby military checkpoint is notable for having an upright piano incorporated into its defensive structure. Thelonious Monk would have approved.

More good news. A cushion with the face of President Zelensky emblazoned on its cover reaches me through the still working Ukrainian postal service. In a tight spot? You’re never alone with a Zelensky pillow. The manufacturer tells me most of his production run is being sent to soldiers on the frontline.

Babushkas at an outdoor soup kitchen, run by the staff of the Czars’ Village restaurant, are given soup and bread by volunteer Viktoria

An army of civilian volunteers protect monuments and statues with sand bags in central Kyiv

And today, like the first cuckoo of spring, I hear a car horn being used in a traffic jam at one of the countless anti-tank barricades thrown up across the city’s streets. A sign that at least one Kyivan is regressing to peacetime levels of impatience.

But, however one tries, the war cannot be ignored. The sounds of heavy bombardment wake the northern districts of this city and continue sporadically through the day. Above us, vapour trails weave crooked patterns as missiles seek their targets. A northern neighbourhood of 100,000 people lost its electricity over the weekend after a Grad rocket strike.

I have received an extraordinary series of images from the Kyiv frontline by a territorial defence volunteer I met almost a month ago.

Maxym was operating a forklift truck in a meat-processing factory in rural Ireland, before he returned to the land of his birth to fight the Russian invasion.

In the last few days his unit – which includes other Irish-based Ukrainians – has attacked and destroyed a Russian armoured formation on the edge of the capital.

More good news. A cushion with the face of President Zelensky emblazoned on its cover reaches me through the still working Ukrainian postal service

The front lines with severely damaged buildings  surrounding the capital Kyiv

Graves of the fallen, in a cemetery in Kyiv

Maxym sent me footage of himself walking among the smoking wrecks of Russian vehicles. They have captured at least one Russian tank, he says.

In one video – made for the Mail – he can be seen wearing the Irish tricolour on his combat fatigues, standing next to a comrade who says in English: ‘Hi guys, here you see the former Russian checkpoint which has been destroyed by our battalion’s Irish unit.

‘So here you see there was a battle 48 hours ago and our soldiers destroyed several tanks here and other military machinery and killed about 40 or 50 Russian soldiers.’

Maxym’s pictures offer more first-hand evidence of the Ukrainian military’s recent successful efforts to stall the Russian advance and in some cases retake ground. The mayor of the ruined frontline satellite town of Irpin is declaring it to have been ‘liberated’ from Russian occupation.

These victories are being achieved at some cost. In a corner of the Lukyanivska cemetery, under the bare branched pin oaks and willows, there are nine fresh graves. The Ukrainian flags whipping in the wind confirm that these are the latest war dead.

Performers, including a volunteer in military fatigues, play to pedestrians in Central Kyiv, despite the background noise of air-raid sirens and shelling

An army of civilian volunteers protect monuments and statues with sand bags in central Kyiv

Major Oleksandr Boichenko was a highly decorated paratrooper officer from the Sumy region. He had a wife and son and was killed by shelling this month during the defence of Kyiv. In a framed picture on the grave, Major Boichenko is wearing an uneasy smile, as if he knows that he and the portrait would one day end up in a place like this.

Ihor Rul was 51 when he was killed in action. He had originally served in the Soviet Army but was a manager in several commercial enterprises before he rejoined the military to fight in Donbas. His wife was a junior school teacher.The decision to leave everything was not easy, but it was the right thing to do, Ihor had said.

With the ground assault held at bay, Kyiv is preparing for a new Russian tactic – shelling of the city centre. The great statues are gradually disappearing behind sandbags. Samson fighting his lion in Podil’s main square has already vanished beneath a protective mound. One more day and we’ll also say goodbye to Princess Olha and her two attendants, outside our hotel. Only the 203ft-tall Motherland Monument – a stainless-steel Soviet-era goddess wielding a sword – defies this kind of protection. She will have to take her chance if and when the time comes.

The first dawn of summer time, behind Kyiv’s historic St. Michael’s Golden-Domed Monastery

One month after the start of the war, Ukraine forces now have more tanks than they did at the start, thanks to the successes of their front line forces

Nearby, flesh-and-blood Ukrainian women are also in a defiant mood. We come across an outdoor soup kitchen, set up by the staff of the historic Czars’ Village restaurant, to feed those pensioners who stayed. The babushkas – grandmothers – in the queue are a garrulous bunch. ‘Hey, you need some of this, you’re too skinny,’ one of them tells me. ‘A typical babushka,’ my translator remarks.

‘Who are you calling a babushka?’ she demands. ‘I’m too young for that.’ She’s 80 if she’s a day.

Another complains: ‘They’ve given us borsch (beetroot soup) for the third day in a row.’

‘You’ll be demanding black caviar next,’ grumbles the young woman providing their free lunches.

‘I have lived here for 100 years,’ volunteers a third old lady in a tea-cosy hat. ‘Putin tried to knock us over. He failed! If I was on the frontline, he would be in real trouble.’ She makes this assertion while leaning on her Zimmer frame.

Then the sirens go off again. Yes, it is officially summertime. But the living here is still far from easy.

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