Kharkiv At noon, passengers on the Kyiv-Kharkiv train were greeted at their destination by an air raid siren. The warning tower with the loudspeaker system is right next to the station building, so the howling sound of the sirens echoes through the air in a powerful and frightening way.
I instinctively look around for signs pointing to an air-raid shelter. But there is nothing of the sort nearby. The danger signal does not seem to bother the Kharkiv people who are in the station forecourt. The war has made them insensitive to the everyday signs of war.
After Donetsk and Luhansk, the Kharkiv Oblast is one of the most war-torn regions in Ukraine. It lies on the border with the Russian Federation and because of this proximity it was occupied from the first days of the war. In September last year, the Ukrainian armed forces liberated 80 percent of the oblast in a surprise counter-offensive.
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