Russian shelling in Kyiv has left dozens of loved ones and neighbors dead under the rubble – losses that cannot be let go – as well as countless destroyed apartments.
Kyiv remains in a state of internal stillness, even as life gradually returns to the streets. The city coexists with the war: landscapes, habits, and rhythms are changing, and if you listen closely to the silence you can sense the tension in its streets.
During a recent mass missile-and-drone attack on Kyiv in the early hours of 6 June, a Russian kamikaze drone ignited a large fire in buildings on Vadym Hetman Street near Shuliavska metro station, a busy transit hub on the capital’s Red Line just west of the city center. As firefighters, rescuers and the DSNS press team worked the scene, a deliberate “double tap” drone strike — now a grim new norm in Kyiv — hit the same spot. With U.S. deliveries of air-defence munitions growing uncertain, such follow-on strikes threaten to become even more frequent and deadlier.
The maxillofacial surgery ward is crowded. Men in civilian clothes and uniforms cluster by the exam rooms, wearing dark glasses or eye bandages. Among them — Oleksandr, who needs an ocular prosthesis after being wounded. So does Andrii. Ivan’s eye survived, but a fragment damaged the muscle and now he cannot open his eyelid.
Over 50,000 Ukrainians have lost limbs as a result of the war. Most of them experience phantom pain – physical sensations in parts of the body that are no longer there. In Ukraine, such pain is treated with augmented reality (AR) technologies, physiotherapy, and even psychedelic therapy. Frontliner explains how it works in this report.
During the full-scale war, the Russian army has regularly launched missile and drone strikes, devastating critical infrastructure and residential areas in Kyiv.