Day after day in Kyiv, small groups of drones have kept coming around the clock, interrupted only by larger waves of missiles and unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). The latest Russian tactic, which has replaced massive night strikes followed by quieter days, has been described as “waves of paralysis” as the Kremlin puts the city under ever-greater pressure.
Moscow’s near-continuous campaign, using Shahed and Gerbera strike drones, S8000 Banderol loitering munitions, and Parodiya decoys, has been accompanied by repeated ballistic, cruise, and anti-radiation missile strikes. The ballistic attacks, in particular, are nerve-grinding — Ukraine is desperately short of US interceptor missiles.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy expects Russia to maintain the intensity at least until its parliamentary elections on September 18–20. Moscow needs to show Russian voters a “picture of victory” that it cannot produce on the battlefield, Kyrylo Budanov, head of the president’s office, said on September 1.
At the worst times, Kyiv and the surrounding region have spent around 11 hours a day on alert. As one alert ends, another begins, and it changes life in ways the statistics cannot show. On September 4, the Kremlin again upped the ante when a drone failed to assassinate the head of the SBU intelligence service in his Kyiv office.
During an alert, the metro stops carrying passengers on its above-ground sections, and trains cannot cross the Dnipro. You can leave work on the right bank and discover you cannot reach your child on the left bank.
While many have returned to working from home, others have joined Air Raid Ride, a Telegram group which connects stranded passengers with drivers when public transport stops. Some simply stand at bus stops and try to hitch a ride.
Railways are also changing the way they operate, dispersing trains and passengers and shortening boarding times to avoid large concentrations of people and rolling stock. The strikes have already caused severe disruption, with dozens of trains delayed and some running 10–15 hours behind schedule after damage to infrastructure and repeated security stops.
Car drivers and pedestrians are reverting to paper maps because navigation apps have gone haywire as a result of defensive GPS spoofing to confuse Russian drones. Users are suddenly placed thousands of miles away, perhaps in Lima, Peru, while their phones shift into other time zones.
Air quality has deteriorated dramatically, and people’s health is suffering. Fires at warehouses, industrial facilities, and other sites have repeatedly sent smoke billowing across Kyiv and the surrounding region. Residents have been advised to close windows and limit time outdoors.
Russia has also systematically attacked the infrastructure that puts food and everyday goods on people’s tables. Agriculture Minister Taras Vysotskyi says around 90% of the food logistics systems operated by retail chains have been destroyed or damaged.
Some empty supermarket shelves have notes blaming the insanity of Russian military planners. Officials insist there is no shortage of food but say the amount of choice can be expected to shrink. Producers often have to deliver directly to shops instead of warehouses, which is likely to increase prices, hitting the most vulnerable.
Shopping centers close, businesses interrupt work, and public institutions have to follow security protocols.
In response to Russia’s attempts to paralyze economic activity, Prime Minister Serhii Koretskyi said the government is preparing new rules, including changes to curfew regulations, to allow businesses, institutions, transport, and critical infrastructure to continue operating.
Ukraine entered 2026 expecting GDP growth of around 1.3%, but Economy Minister Oleksandr Kravchenko said in late August the forecast was being revised downward because of attacks on energy and logistics, and restrictions on Black Sea exports.
A drone does not have to destroy a factory to impose a cost. Keeping workers at home, stopping trains, delaying trucks, closing shops, and forcing companies to rebuild the same warehouse for the second or third time also damages the economy.
With non-stop alarms, some people simply stop reacting; others say it is harder than the huge night strikes because their nervous systems never receive the message that the danger is over. Some leave Kyiv for a few days of respite; others refuse to move.
On September 1, Ukrainian children went back to school, but an air alert disrupted their first day. Marya Dmytriyeva, a Kyiv resident, told me her child was caught by an air raid alarm just as they were leaving home, and lessons were held in a shelter.
Zelenskyy said even enemies should understand that children are children, but Russia is making them participants in the war and will continue until it is “put in its place.”
Parliament opened a new session under shelter rules, with MPs reminded that an alert means stopping work and moving to safety.
Meanwhile, Kremlin-aligned media is calling for attacks on bridges with the goal of cutting Kyiv in half. Moscow has also revived nuclear threats, and few people think it’s just rhetoric.
Putin, speaking to Russian teachers, said children should understand the war as a “food chain” and described a fantasy of killer whales tearing polar bears apart. It gave a glimpse into his mind: the strong eat the weak.
This is why the reaction outside Ukraine matters. While European Union Foreign Affairs and Security Chief Kaja Kallas urged countries holding air-defense interceptors close to expiry to send them to shore up Ukraine’s defenses, Washington welcomed Russia’s finance minister back to a G20 meeting in the US.
Ukrainians don’t understand why some allies are apparently unable to see that its ability to defend itself and hit Russia symmetrically is the only way to change Moscow’s calculations. Air defense keeps us alive, sanctions constrain the machine, but Russia must feel the war it created.
And that means Ukraine needs long-range capability to make Russia come to the negotiating table (it may also explain why Zelenskyy said on September 2 that Ukrainian drones will shut down Russian civil aviation).
Kyiv is still functioning despite the daily killing of Ukrainian civilians. Schools have opened, parliament is sitting, cafes make coffee, people work from shelters and help each other when the metro stops.
This is not a story about magical resilience. Kyiv is a city being deliberately exhausted, but it refuses to turn exhaustion into surrender.
People curse, and they joke. Some say the only place with no exit is a coffin, while others repeat a famous Ukrainian saying, roughly translated as “Never yet has there been no way out” (ще так не було, щоб ніяк не було).
But the toll is becoming harder to carry as the West continues to treat Ukraine as a problem to be managed, rather than confronting the prospects for its own future if Russia is allowed to prevail.
Elena Davlikanova is a Senior Fellow with the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA) and Sahaidachnyi Security Center. Her work focuses on Ukraine, Russia’s domestic issues, and their effects on global peace. She is an experienced researcher and foresight expert with studies entitled ‘Russia-2032 Scenarios: A decade past the full-scale invasion’ and ‘The War of Narratives: The Image of Ukraine in Media.’
Europe’s Edge is CEPA’s online journal covering critical topics on the foreign policy docket across Europe and North America. All opinions expressed on Europe’s Edge are those of the author alone and may not represent those of the institutions they represent or the Center for European Policy Analysis. CEPA maintains a strict intellectual independence policy across all its projects and publications.
