As Ukrainian authorities reported further ceasefire violations in the east of the country and top Western officials, including the US Vice President Kamala Harris and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, warned about an impending conflict, people in Kyiv weren’t giving up on leisure.
Across the Ukrainian capital, families flocked to the parks and playgrounds on Sunday, enjoying the winter sunshine and blue skies.
This is not a city that looks like it’s on the brink of a conflict. Under the Motherland Monument, a 102-meter tall statue of a woman with a shield and a sword that towers over the country’s war museum, children were having great fun climbing up and down the tanks on display there.
Across the river, in Dniprovsʹkyy Park, scores of people were spending their Sunday morning running, cycling and in-line skating. Nearby, on the sandy bank of the Dnieper river, children were happily digging in the sand, watching the ducks swim by. But the sense of pride and resolve, heightened in recent months amid the growing tension, remains ever-present.
On the world-famous Maidan square, the site of the 2014 bloody protests, huge flags are still on display following Wednesday’s Day of Unity, a national holiday spontaneously declared by the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
On a hill above the square, photographs of those who died during the protests are on permanent display.
The events of 2014 are known here as the “Revolution of Dignity” and those who died during them are referred to as the “Heavenly Hundred.” On Sunday, dozens of people gathered by the memorial wall, lighting candles, laying flowers and decorating the monument with fresh blue and yellow ribbons which are on display everywhere in the city.
Source: www.cnn.com