Dispatch from Ukraine: ‘Hope is what we have. Hope that we in Kyiv continue to be safe and that those who are not safe will be soon’

In his letter from Kyiv this week, Oleksandr Proshuta, a sports journalist, takes a day in nature to recalibrate, and feels a sense of hope about Kyiv coming back to life even as he struggles to process the atrocities in the nearby city of Bucha

People wast past the Kyiv-Pasazhyrskyi railway station in Kyiv, Ukraine: ‘The city is coming back to life, but the authorities are still warning people of the possibilities of things getting worse again.’ Picture: Reuters

Thursday was the first time, since it all started, that I left my district. It was a nice day, 20C outside and sunny, so I went to visit Rusanivka, a man-made island and neighbourhood surrounded by a canal on the left bank of Kyiv.

It was a pretty emotional experience for me. Rusanivka was built in the 1960s and it’s quite lovely. I tend to walk there every ten days in normal times, even in ...