At the heart of the European Parliament in Brussels, a grand August Förster piano lies in pieces on the floor, blackened and burned. Now far from home, the instrument once stood proudly inside Irpin’s Central House of Culture, which was destroyed by shelling during the Russian army’s failed
Seven people gathered on March 14 in a tiny church in the hitherto flourishing downtown neighborhood of Podil. The normally packed and bustling area stood eerily empty, like a set of a post-apocalyptic film. A frigid silence hunkered down over the district, interrupted occasionally by the faint thunder of the
Editor’s Note: The following is a personal account of the Kyiv Independent’s journalist describing spending a day with a small group of volunteers helping people get out of some of the most dangerous areas outside Kyiv. IRPIN AND STOYANKA, Kyiv Oblast – A clear, frigid day rises over Irpin.
IRPIN, Ukraine — Hundreds of terrified people cautiously walk through the debris of concrete and twisted metal, trying to cross the Irpen River on foot. “Come on, no need to rush, careful,” a Ukrainian soldier says while helping civilians onto concrete blocks leading to a stairway. Mothers hold up their crying
