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Ryuu96 on 08 April 2024
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A military operation to seize Kharkiv would be a tall order for Russia. The last time it tried, in 2022 when the city was much more poorly defended, it failed spectacularly. Taking the city would require breaking through Ukrainian defences and encircling it, which Russia is nowhere near being able to do; establishing air superiority, which is not a given; and winning a bloody urban campaign.

"There's a strong chance they would not succeed with any of that," says Andriy Zagorodnyuk, a Ukrainian expert and former defence minister. For others, the fear remains that the Russians will turn nastier when they realise they can't get what they want. "They won't be able to take Kharkiv, but destroy it—perhaps," says Denys Yaroslavsky, a local businessman turned special-forces reconnaissance commander. "We'd be talking about something of the order of Aleppo."

If others have written Kharkiv off, those inside the city have yet to receive the memo. Urban life continues in spite of the dozen daily air-raid warnings. Families walk in the city's central park despite the missiles that occasionally land nearby. Kids play football next to a military facility. The sense of digging in is perhaps best summed up by the city's decision to start building its schools underground. The first of these, located in the western Industrialna district, will open this month after the spring holidays. The facility, which cost around 100m hryvnia ($2.5m), is entered via a single blast hatch that sticks out incongruously from a sports field. The school is built with reinforced concrete that goes several metres underground, and should survive anything Russia throws at it. Already all 900 spots in the first intake have been reserved.

Ms Tymokhyna, who offers The Economist tea in her park-bench living room, says she is happy to lend a hand with any additional digging that is needed. The two years of bombs and missiles have had an impact on her health, and her nerves are shattered. For two months at the beginning of the war she lived in a tent. But, she says, there is nothing she would not do to defend the free country that for 43 years has been her home. "I'm 60 years old, but I'm ready with my spade to go wherever I'm needed," she says. "Make Molotov cocktails, acid, whatever it takes. Ukraine is everything to me. If the Russians dare to come here, I'll find them. They won't have a hope of staying in the realm of the living."

Last edited by Ryuu96 - on 08 April 2024