The sheltering issue

Waiting for Patriot

It’s hot in Kyiv - in every possible way, in a bad way.

Warmed up by the smoke and the explosions of russian ballistic missiles, the city is yet again recovering from ‘the worst attack on Kyiv so far’.

Today, July 2nd, russia used 570 drones and missiles against Ukraine’s capital. The air defense forces shot down most of the assault items, but the ones that got through caused much damage and grief.

In total, 25 ballistic missiles and 12 attack drones struck across 33 locations, with additional drone debris falling in 18 more locations. At least 21 people were killed, dozens more wounded, and the numbers will be updated throughout the following day as the rescue workers carefully go through the rubble of residential buildings.

Tomorrow is declared as the day of mourning for the victims of today’s attack.

Notably, russia started hitting businesses in the private sector more, shifting attention from large energy infrastructure targets (still hitting power plants and electricity tranformer junctions) to storage facilities and logistics. Appliances retailer MOYO, bookseller Book Chef, internet provider Utels, Nova Poshta, and other businesses sustained damage to their property or storage facilities. This is relatively new. Previously, russia made sure to demolish large industrial enterprises, or target the railways. This new wave of attacks puts additional pressure on the Ukrainian economy, making life harder for all of us.

But let’s talk about sheltering.

Yesterday as usual, as soon as the air alert started wailing, I took my trusty mat and emergency backpack stuffed with a sleeping bag and a tiny pillow, and headed to the underground metro station. To me, this is a familiar ritual. I have a threshold of danger that I’ve established for myself: whenever there are 30+ drones or missiles heading towards Kyiv, I shelter.

Unfortunately, up until the recent very bad attacks, a relatively small fraction of the capital’s residents adhered to this safety and security standard. Most folks just sleep through the night. Even fellow substacker Terrell, who lives in Kyiv, also takes the gamble, staying in an apartment of a panel building at night, for the lack of accessible shelters nearby.

Lack of shelters isn’t the only issue. Another issue is the fairly recent mainstreaming of the sheltering culture. Before the steep escalation of ballistic missile attacks, folks deliberately chose to catch the precious hours of sleep in their homes ahead of the next day’s work. Folks would share they’re not sheltering, as a way of showing defiance in the face of russian attempts to disrupt the lives of Ukrainians. I’m happy to see that Kyiv residents are adding a mix of personal security precautions to that seemingly endless show of defiance.

More Kyiv residents than ever sheltered this night and early morning: about 52,000. As metro platforms are often the only truly secure and functional sheltering accommodation, some metro stations grew quite crowded.

As Texty reports, Kyiv’s shelters are officially rated to hold about 2.7 million residents, but actual usage has historically been minimal: at 2025’s peak, only around 25,000 people (under 1% of the population) sheltered in the metro overnight. That’s changing fast.

For the first time ever, I had close neighbors on the metro platform literally breathing down my neck: a family of three situated perpendicular to my body, and a guy who lay down parallel to my mat. The neighbors of my neighborhood drew closer to each other - literally! The platform became a mini-layout of Podil: a mix of hipsters, the occasional queers, older folks, dog and cat owners protecting their pets’ sensitive hearing, parents with small kids.

Each time, this crowd on the platform is so incredibly quiet and respectful of each other’s space - sans, of course, the occasional bark or meow or a child crying. The platform stretches on for quite a bit, with a big potential for the tiny shuffles and whispers to accumulate into noise, but there are times when I join the platform, wondering whether I’ll be the only one sheltering to discover a whole tuna can full of people, each person entirely quiet, brooding in the light of their phone screens or sleeping.

Yes, that’s a human in a hammock stretched between two metro columns.

I am happy to witness this visible improvement in the sheltering culture…. If only we didn’t have the need for a sheltering culture.

Dozens of ballistic missiles now hit Kyiv nearly simultaneously, a volume capable of overwhelming even a strong air defense system. We need Patriot ammo. We need it very badly. Kyiv’s shelters cannot accommodate 2.7 million people, no matter what bullshit our city mayor says.

The best way to deal with the mismatch of shelter capacity with the number of people sheltering is to secure our 2.7 million Kyiv residents through Patriot ammo shooting down more of those deadly russian ballistic missiles. Ukraine’s top officials keep sending their pleas for urgent support in obtaining Patriot missiles ASAP.

russia, reeling after Ukraine’s deep strikes onto Moscow and its territory, hits the political target - Kyiv. This is pure hatred and agony in action, an attempt to subdue Kyiv in the only way they know how, through terror of civilians and destruction of civilian infrastructure. This is an assault on Ukraine’s productivity, depriving people of sleep amid a heatwave, hitting businesses. Slow and sluggish, we blow through deadlines and delay tasks, yet still carry on.

This is the russian war on civilians, on Ukrainians. russia is no longer obscuring its intentions or justifying the strikes through painting the hit locations as ‘military targets’. Pure terror, reaching its peak five years into the full-scale war.

It does feel like a peak. Every new attack against Kyiv is worse than the previous one. It’s agony of the empire that would rather annihilate its neighbor than let us be free.

Smoke rising over Kyiv this morning, July 2, 2026.

274 civilians killed and 1,763 injured in May 2026, the highest monthly total since April 2022.

Since the beginning of 2026, 1,272 civilians killed and 6,871 injured, a 40% increase over the same period one year earlier.

We need those damn air defense missiles, to give our Defense Forces enough of a backing here in the rear so that they do their job pressuring russia through strikes deep into their territory. russia only knows the language of violence, and is using it at liberty, unpunished.

Dearest gentle readers, Kyiv is such a vibrant place to be, still, despite all it’s enduring, yet more often than not it feels like all 2.7 million of us are in an oasis isolated in a deserted wasteland, with coyotes, missiles, drones circling in.

I think about Samuel Beckett today. Maybe I’ll think about it some more and more coherently. He never made references to war in his writings, but the existential threat combined with the existential dread of the war makes me think of the goddamned ‘Waiting for Godot’:

A country road. A tree. Evening.

That scene in the desert, in a place where one finds themselves. Waiting for justice that never comes. Waiting for retribution that never comes, or perhaps a divine intervention, with a foreboding sense of threat.

We’re with this very adult ownership and responsibility, in this desert, responsibility over what to choose and how to care for this corner of reality here. It’s all really narrowed down to what is discernible, what each can do, which is often not that much. This city, a country road, a tree, evening.

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