War in Ukraine

Ukraine dispatch: ‘The football last week gave us a good distraction. It was very emotional’

After two months of quiet, the war returned to Kyiv last week. Oleksandr Proshuta, a sports journalist based in the Ukrainian capital, reports on daily life there and tells of his concerns for his native city of Zaporizhzhya

A resilient nation and people: Women walk past shelled buildings in the city of Borodyanka, northwest of the Ukrainian capital Kyiv. Picture: SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty

Last Sunday, the Russians attacked a train carriage plant near the Dnipro river. They had fired missiles a few days earlier at Kyiv, on the Wednesday that Ukraine played Scotland in football, but the targets were defended.

The Sunday attack was on an old plant, which wasn’t far from where people were living. Luckily enough there were no casualties, but people were scared. My friends, who lived near it, were startled out of bed around ...