The first alert sounded before nightfall, on Thursday, July 3, around 8 pm, just as Kyiv residents were returning from work. They encountered other city dwellers rushing into the metro's 52 stations, hoping to claim a place to lay out their mattresses for the night before the corridors and platforms filled up.
Outside, the relentless mechanical buzzing of Iranian Shahed drones quickly saturated both the air and the ears. Just one day after US President Donald Trump announced that the US would suspend deliveries of Patriot anti-missile systems, the Ukrainian capital endured yet another massive assault of drones and missiles launched from Russia on Thursday night.
At the Polytechnic Institute station, on the red line, there was no space left on the ground by 12:30 am. Women settled even on the steps of the stalled escalator, unpacking their bags. Water bottles, hamster cages, cat carriers, earbuds, headphones for music: Everyone in Kyiv has now gotten into the habit of preparing their belongings in anticipation of difficult nights.
"I was playing tennis when I heard the first drone, around 8 pm," said Valentina, 27, lying on a yoga mat next to her roommate and her Jack Russell terrier. "Everything was ready." In her special metro kit – she was spending her 10th night there since early June – she packed her ID, her carefully charged MacBook (she works freelance in IT) and, of course, her phone, an indispensable tool to follow the progress of the attacks in real time on Telegram channels like Aeris Rimor or Real Kyiv, and to read the reactions of Ukrainians, who are never slow to post a caustic comment on social media.
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