KYIV – After two and a half years of war against the Russian invasion, Ukraine’s capital remains defiant. On a summer’s day rows of outdoor restaurants and cafès do brisk business with customers who arrive in shiny Mercedes convertibles and BMWs to enjoy a constellation of foreign cuisines. “Kyiv is waiting for you after the victory,” placards on central streets in English tell future tourists and the hundreds of foreigners working for NGOs.

 Despite such official optimism, ordinary people’s nerves understandably are somewhat frayed after continuous Russian missile and drone attacks like the one that smashed into a children’s hospital in July, killing a doctor and two children and wounding 10 other kids. With the current population of the capital estimated at some 2.5 million, the statistical chance of being hit by any of the few Russian missiles or drones that get through the city’s effective air defences is of course slim, but each night creates anxiety whether air raid alarms will oblige people at least to lose sleep and head for shelters. Most vulnerable for targeting are ordinary people living in the many high rise blocks built during the Soviet era and their inhabitants also are the most affected by electricity cuts affecting the city due to the extensive Russian attacks on Ukrainian energy infrastructure.

 I travelled to Kyiv on the spartan overnight train from the Polish city of Lublin, hoping to report for the Italian Insider on Italy’s efforts to support the Ukrainian war effort. Italy is providing extensive military, economic and cultural assistance to President Zelensky’s government. Since I arrived on a week end, unsurprisingly no Italian Embassy officials were available to provide details. Touring the city and talking to brave Ukrainians was a humbling experience, however, and I was filled with admiration for their resilience.

 One only has to be in the city for a few hours to appreciate that the tough Ukrainians will never surrender, though that doesn’t mean that one cannot hear occasional outspoken criticism of the nation’s leaders. “I never thought Zelensky had the right background to lead the country,” an intellectual tells me frankly in an open air cafè where we can’t easily be overheard, “but he has done much better than one would have expected.” There is widespread acceptance that elections cannot be held during wartime as they would only foster instability that would be exploited by the Russians.

 The mayor of Kyiv also has his detractors who point to the pristine state of the city’s newly resurfaced roads running through many neighborhoods. “People ask whether all that money spent on contracts for road maintenance should have been spent instead on more military drones,” one observer says.

 The battered Ukrainian train that took us to Kyiv from Poland was filled with young people returning home from studies abroad to join their families for the summer holidays. An intelligent 17-year-old in my compartment is travelling back from as far away as Japan where he is studying at aviation school on a Japanese scholarship for Ukrainians.

 Hearing that I am a journalist, he offers to give me a full briefing on the political situation. One of the key events as he sees it in recent months was the murder in July of a 60.year-old Ukrainian nationalist woman linguistics professor, Iryna Farion, who was shot and killed in the western city of Lviv.

 She had stirred controversy in 2023 by suggesting that “true patriots” of Ukraine should not speak Russian under any circumstances. She was dismissed from a university post amid accusations of inciting hatred based on linguistic preferences. The hardline nationalist Svoboda (Freedom) political party to which Ms Farion belonged blamed Russia directly for her killing.

 “She dared to say what many people thought,” my student interlocutor says before an elderly peasant heading back to his home near the front line tells us to shut up so he can get some sleep in our three bunk compartment.

 In the morning our carriage attendant serves us tea in silver glass holders as the train thunders though dazzling landscapes, recalling scenes from the movie Dr Zhivago. Andriy, the reassuring fixer recommended by a friend, is waiting for me in the bright sunschine at Kyiv station and whisks us away in a battered taxi to my hotel. My friend had worked with Andriy on a 12 day assignment reporting on food for an American magazine and Andriy soon takes me to a restaurant for an excellent meal of Borsht soup and, of course, chicken Kyiv.

 Later we plunge into the depths of the city’s deep metro system and visit the square filled with the photos of thousands of young men and women who have died fighting the Russian invaders. Here and there are British, American and Australian flags paying tribute to foreign volunteers among the fallen.

 Every other family in the capital either has a family member fighting, has lost a relative who was a casualty or lives in anxiety about a son being conscripted. People smugglers still do brisk business on the border with Romania helping young men escape conscription, diplomatic sources say.

 Only a handful of tourists, all Ukrainians from outside the capital, are visiting the dazzling Ukrainian baroque churches in the centre of the city. I stop to buy an atmpospheric oil painting of their domes from a street seller for a handful of Polish zloty.

 After the curfew begins, in the safety of my hotel room, I am reminded of trying to rest in the Commodore hotel in Beirut during the Lebanese civil war as bullets ricocheted by the window nearly 40 years ago.  The air raid alarm app on my phone remains silent, however, with no call to take head to the hotel underground car park equipped for sheltering from Russian attacks.

 My brief visit to Kiev soon will be over. After a visit to see the damage at the bombed children’s hospital Andriy accompanies me to the bus station where the overnight coach back to Poland is waiting.

 In a subway underpass on the way to the station an ‘adult shop’ decorated with a modern art tableau has an optimistic message for the future of the beleaguered, couragous city whose spirit Putin has been unable to break.

 “Our love will be better …”

 jp