Restaurants bustle, new bookshops open, the air raid app goes off. This is our defiant reality in Kyiv | Nataliya Gumenyuk

As Russia seeks to destroy our way of life, Ukrainian efforts to keep society going should never be taken for granted

A family member who works for the Kyiv ity State Administration, recently told me about a colleague. She is a single mother with a 10-year-old son. After hearing a recent explosion during one of the air raids, she fainted; her son, convinced she had died, knocked on the neighbour's door asking for help at 3am.

Two months later, she quit her job at the administration's housing department, which, on top of its regular work, is now reviewing requests for financial compensation from Kyiv residents whose flats were damaged by recent missile attacks. They have two months to provide residents with decisions. They often work from 7am till 11pm, rushing home just before the curfew. Her resignation has taken a toll on the others.