'I hope we won't die': What it's like to live through Putin's blitz on Kyiv

KYIV – Driving through a pitch-black Kyiv at 6pm, once vibrant neighbourhoods appear to have vanished into a few isolated, illuminated shopfronts.

Residents are now dealing with almost daily missile and drone strikes, alongside power cuts of up to 16 hours a day and the threat of winter, when temperatures can plummet to below -10C.

I am staying in relative luxury at a city-centre hotel, which has an on-site generator. Nevertheless, I have to spend the night in the freezing cold underground car park that now serves as a bomb shelter, and return to my room exhausted. The more than five-hour air alarm keeps me in the shelter overnight, my stiff body unable to sleep on a camp-style bed in the centre of the car park, with nothing more than a thin blanket to stay warm.

With Iskander-M sho