At a wartime conference, Kyiv’s resilience was matched by impatience over delayed air-defense support and the rising cost of survival. “The city looks exactly the same,” TVP World senior online editor Matthew Day said after returning from Kyiv. But, he added, “appearances are very, very deceptive” in a capital where air-raid warnings can interrupt daily life within minutes. Day told TVP World’s News in Depth program that Kyiv’s streets remain crowded, traffic jams are routine and bars fill up on Friday nights. Yet the apparent normality coexists with repeated Russian missile and drone attacks. Residents, he said, continue working, meeting friends and going out because spending every alert underground would make ordinary life impossible. Support under strain Day travelled to Kyiv for the Yalta European Strategy conference, held on September 11–12 and attended by politicians, diplomats, business leaders and experts. He said the gathering reflected both confidence in Ukraine’s ability to hold the front and frustration over the pace of Western military support, particularly air-defense supplies. “You hear these words all the time,” Day said of declarations of solidarity from Ukraine’s partners, arguing that assistance often arrives “in dribs and drabs.” Ukraine has repeatedly sought additional Patriot air-defense systems and interceptors as Russia intensifies attacks on cities and infrastructure. The financial pressure is also mounting. Roksolana Pidlasa, head of the Ukrainian parliament’s budget committee, said at the conference that the war now costs Ukraine’s budget about $190 million a day, up from $140 million in 2024. Russia has also stepped up attacks on Ukraine’s transport network. On September 13, a Russian drone struck the locomotive of a Kyiv-Warsaw passenger train near the Polish border. No one was injured. Ukrainian officials say attacks on railways are aimed at disrupting civilian movement and supply routes linking the country with Europe. For people in Kyiv, Day said, the calculation remains immediate and personal: “We can’t live our lives underground.”
