KHARKOV, Ukraine — It was nighttime earlier this month when a Russian missile exploded in Kharkiv, knocking down walls and shattering windows. The next day, people went shopping and to work, ate in restaurants and jammed the streets with traffic, almost as if nothing had happened.
But behind the veneer of normality, residents of Kharkiv, Ukraine's second-largest city, have been furious.. Over the past month, they have borne the brunt of Russia's missile campaign, which has killed and injured dozens of people, destroyed buildings and made everyone nervous.
To let off steam, Kharkiv residents have an exclusive means: Radio Al Rojo Vivo, a new FM station. “This is Al Rojo Vivo in the morning,” Volodymyr Noskov, host of the morning call-in show, said in a recent broadcast. “Why are you red hot today?”
In Kharkiv, a sprawling city of universities and factories, adaptation has taken many forms. Almost two years after the war began, the city is opening underground schools. Psychologists visit impact sites to calm residents. Broken windows are immediately boarded up.
In the midst of the carnage, Radio Al Rojo Vivo, which aired a year ago, is becoming one of the most popular local media outlets. It serves as a megaphone for the fears and frustrations that simmer within a population that is under near-constant attack.
“Despite everything Russia is doing, the city continues to live,” said Yevhen Streltsov, founder of Radio Al Rojo Vivo. But, he said, “people are getting tired because their nerves are not iron” and they want to complain.
While there are occasional complaints about local bureaucrats and inefficiency, most of the anger is directed at Russia.
“May they burn in hell to the seventh generation,” Tetyana Arshava, a listener, wrote on the station's Instagram page after a mass-casualty attack.
The name of the station, Radio Nakypilo, can also be translated as Radio Harto.
It receives funding from the National Endowment for Democracy, an American nonprofit, and the European Democracy Fund, with the mission of covering local news in a community that, even by the standards of Ukraine's hard-hit cities, has endured 23 agonizing months.
Just 39 kilometers from the Russian border, Kharkiv was one of the first targets of the invading Russian ground forces and was partially surrounded. The people fled. Of the population of approximately 2 million that existed before the invasion, today 1.2 million remain.
Ballistic missile volleys arrive from once a week to daily, and they arrive so quickly that the alarms cannot provide more than 40 seconds of warning. Parents quickly usher children into bathtubs or at least away from windows.
In recent weeks, Russian missiles devastated two hotels, the Kharkiv Palace and the Park Hotel; they broke windows at popular restaurants, which quickly reopened; and hit apartment buildings. The pre-dawn attack on the apartment building earlier this month left 17 injured.
“This is our everyday life,” Streltsov said.
Kharkiv is at a disadvantage because the Army's best air defense systems are mostly reserved for the capital, kyiv.
Mayor Ihor Terekho has promoted a program of building schools underground to protect them from missiles. The school district has built five MetroSchools in subway stations and is nearing completion of an underground elementary school for 450 students.
“This is the reality we live in,” said Iryna Tarasenko, the City's education official.
By: ANDREW E. KRAMER and MARIA VARENIKOVA
BBC-NEWS-SRC: http://www.nytsyn.com/subscribed/stories/7084145, IMPORTING DATE: 2024-01-24 19:52:04
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