There’s a veneer of normality to life in Ukraine’s major cities if you ignore the air raid sirens, the booming sounds of anti-aircraft fire, the threatening buzz of drones passing overhead, and the darkened streets of neighbourhoods taking their turn as part of rolling power cuts affecting all of Ukraine.
As I say, if you ignore all of the above it’s fine, and many people do.
Kyiv appears particularly normal. Shops and restaurants are open, I’m told theatre performances are sometimes sold out, and at times you can still see families taking photos in front of the capital’s exquisite churches and cathedrals.
Late at night though, the city starts to change.
Image: Explosions over Kyiv during a Russian drone strike. Pic: Reuters
In the past few days, mostly throughout the night, air raid apps have been lighting up with warnings to “seek shelter”, while the sound of the sirens pierces the still and freezing air of the city.
From different directions I watched the anti-aircraft batteries tracking and following Russian drones swarming over Kyiv in unprecedented numbers – the tracers from their machine guns shooting into the night skies and ominous orange glows in the distance from possible missile strikes.
The capital is being targeted as never before, so much so that the military has assigned special anti-air units particularly for the defence of Kyiv.
Attacking this city is partly a Russian tactic to wear its population down and create fear and uncertainty.
But many of its drones and missiles are targeting the country’s energy infrastructure. Russia wants to switch the lights out here and, if possible, literally freeze this people’s resistance.
A necessity, rolling blackouts are the norm now while engineers repair power stations and supply lines. Power producing capacity is already limited after years of targeting, and as the temperature drops the authorities must save wherever they can.
Image: A supermarket in Kyiv during a power outage. Pics: AP
For families the threat of attack from the skies never goes away
I drove through the streets of Kyiv’s left-bank suburbs, darkened apartment blocks silhouetted against the city’s skyline.
The dimly lit lights inside apartments are provided by generators or car batteries hooked up to makeshift electrical circuits tacked on to walls and ceilings.
Alona emerged from the doors of her apartment building into a pitch-black car park, her torch glinting off the remains of the first snows of winter, now turned into ice.
I followed her up three flights of stairs into her apartment and was introduced to her husband, Yevhen, and their two-year-old, Oles.
Image: Alona, with her husband Yevhen and their two-year-old Oles
For families in particular, the threat of attack from the skies never goes away. In many ways it is psychological warfare, and Alona said it’s taking its toll on her and her little boy Oles.
“The hardest part, by far, is at night when you’re putting your child to sleep in the bathroom or when you have to rush to the shelter in the middle of the night. It’s really tough because it disrupts the child’s routine,” she explained.
“He doesn’t get proper sleep, everything is upside down for him, he’s terrified and he had started to become scared of the alarms.”
‘It’s still deeply frightening to be in the open’
Alona talked me through how her family tries to work out the risk of a strike in their area when the air raid sirens go off, and then they make a decision whether or not to seek shelter accordingly.
This family is typical of thousands here – scared to stay at home and scared to go out.
“I saw a missile being shot down and let me tell you, it was terrifying,” Alona said.
“It’s a haunting experience, even though I’m standing here now, telling you about how we ‘measure’ the scale of the danger, it’s still deeply frightening to be in the open.”
Image: Stuart Ramsay with the anti-air unit
The soldiers who do their best to track Russian drones
After travelling to see the family, I went to meet an air defence mobile group belonging to the National Guard. I followed them on to a frozen field where they set up to man their position in the dark of night and sub-zero temperatures.
They are just a handful of hundreds, even thousands, of soldiers across the country doing the same.
These men, led by their commander Serhii, do their best to track the incoming drones with radar and use large spotlights to search the skies when they believe a Russian drone is nearby.
Image: The air defence units search for Russian drones
‘The enemy is changing tactics’
Russian tactics have changed though. As many as half are harmless decoys designed to waste time and bullets. The other half are deadly.
“The enemy is changing tactics, trying out different manoeuvres,” Serhii told me.
“They are attempting to approach in groups at low altitudes to avoid detection by radar, some targets fly high and are visible on radar, while another group flies low and slips past air defence systems.”
He showed me a Ukrainian-developed program on a tablet that tracks and monitors the movement of drones and missiles.
“Here it shows the movement of aerial targets in real-time within our zone of engagement,” he explained, pointing at a swarm of drones on his screen flying over Ukrainian territory.
People try to carry on as normal as attacks increase
Whether Russia’s main tactic is to target energy infrastructure or to sow fear, or both, nobody really knows. What they do know is that the attacks have increased.
“I cannot say the specific [reason for] that, whether it’s just the terror to make people feel unsafe and create [an] unstable situation or it’s some kind of facilities they’re trying to target, but they are operating, it’s like regular,” Pavlo Yurov of the National Guard’s “Hurricane” brigade told me.
Beneath the National Guards’ rudimentary dome of protection, people try to carry on with life as staff in restaurants and shops dress Christmas trees and hang fairy lights, but this war is grindingly depressing for everyone.
Young men fear being drafted, many hide out of sight. The news from the eastern front lines is never good, the Russians are taking more land.
Another Christmas is coming and like the last two it will likely pass without any sign of peace.
Worldwide stock markets have plummeted for the second day running as the fallout from Donald Trump’s global tariffs continues.
While European and Asian markets suffered notable falls, American indexes were the worst hit, with Wall Street closing to a sea of red on Friday following Thursday’s rout – the worst day in US markets since the COVID-19 pandemic.
All three of the US’s major indexes were down by more than 5% at market close; The Dow Jones Industrial Average plummeted 5.5%, the S&P 500 was 5.97% lower, and the Nasdaq Composite slipped 5.82%.
The Nasdaq was also 22% below its record-high set in December, which indicates a bear market.
Ever since the US president announced the tariffs on Wednesday evening, analysts estimate that around $4.9trn (£3.8trn) has been wiped off the value of the global stock market.
More on Donald Trump
Related Topics:
Mr Trump has remained unapologetic as the markets struggle, posting in all-caps on Truth Social before the markets closed that “only the weak will fail”.
The UK’s leading stock market, the FTSE 100, also suffered its worst daily drop in more than five years, closing 4.95% down, a level not seen since March 2020.
And the Japanese exchange Nikkei 225 dropped by 2.75% at end of trading, down 20% from its recent peak in July last year.
Image: US indexes had the worst day of trading since the COVID-19 pandemic. Pic: Reuters
Trump holds trade deal talks – reports
It comes as a source told CNN that Mr Trump has been in discussions with Vietnamese, Indianand Israelirepresentatives to negotiate bespoke trade deals that could alleviate proposed tariffs on those countries before a deadline next week.
The source told the US broadcaster the talks were being held in advance of the reciprocal levies going into effect next week.
Vietnam faced one of the highest reciprocal tariffs announced by the US president this week, with 46% rates on imports. Israeli imports face a 17% rate, and Indian goods will be subject to 26% tariffs.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
China – hit with 34% tariffs on imported goods – has also announced it will issue its own levy of the same rate on US imports.
Mr Trump said China “played it wrong” and “panicked – the one thing they cannot afford to do” in another all-caps Truth Social post earlier on Friday.
Later, on Air Force One, the US president told reporters that “the beauty” of the tariffs is that they allow for negotiations, referencing talks with Chinese company ByteDance on the sale of social media app TikTok.
Please use Chrome browser for a more accessible video player
6:50
Tariffs: Xi hits back at Trump
He said: “We have a situation with TikTok where China will probably say, ‘We’ll approve a deal, but will you do something on the tariffs?’
“The tariffs give us great power to negotiate. They always have.”
Global financial markets gave a clear vote of no-confidence in President Trump’s economic policy.
The damage it will do is obvious: costs for companies will rise, hitting their earnings.
The consequences will ripple throughout the global economy, with economists now raising their expectations for a recession, not only in the US, but across the world.
The court ruled to uphold the impeachment saying the conservative leader “violated his duty as commander-in-chief by mobilising troops” when he declared martial law.
The president was also said to have taken actions “beyond the powers provided in the constitution”.
Image: Demonstrators stayed overnight near the constitutional court. Pic: AP
Supporters and opponents of the president gathered in their thousands in central Seoul as they awaited the ruling.
The 64-year-old shocked MPs, the public and international allies in early December when he declared martial law, meaning all existing laws regarding civilians were suspended in place of military law.
Image: The court was under heavy police security guard ahead of the announcement. Pic: AP
After suddenly declaring martial law, Mr Yoon sent hundreds of soldiers and police officers to the National Assembly.
He has argued that he sought to maintain order, but some senior military and police officers sent there have told hearings and investigators that Mr Yoon ordered them to drag out politicians to prevent an assembly vote on his decree.
His presidential powers were suspended when the opposition-dominated assembly voted to impeach him on 14 December, accusing him of rebellion.
The unanimous verdict to uphold parliament’s impeachment and remove Mr Yoon from office required the support of at least six of the court’s eight justices.
South Korea must hold a national election within two months to find a new leader.
Lee Jae-myung, leader of the main liberal opposition Democratic Party, is the early favourite to become the country’s next president, according to surveys.