Ukraine Has Passed a Point of No Return

Visuals by Mila Teshaieva

M. Gessen is an Opinion Columnist, reporting from Kyiv, Ukraine. Ms. Teshaieva is a Ukrainian photographer and filmmaker based in Berlin.

In the middle of the last Saturday of January, hundreds of people congregated on the frozen Dnipro River for a rave. Under the high noon sun, the world was white: the tall apartment blocks lining the riverbank, the unplowed boardwalk and the flat, snow-covered expanse of ice.

With a citywide curfew in effect, parties in Kyiv have long moved to daytime hours, and with much of the city lacking light and heat, it makes sense to gather outdoors. So adults of different ages, dressed in puffy coats of every color, baggy designer sweatpants and chunky Uggs, had gathered, though there wasn’t much dancing, perhaps because the battery-powered speakers weren’t quite strong enough to blast music through the open air. There was, however, much mingling, some barbecuing, a lot of mulled wine and at least one book burning, of a Russian-language young-adult novel. Kids in snow pants slid down the steep, iced-over bank of the river; when they skidded across the ice, they knocked over a few adults.

After the music ended, as scheduled, at 3 p.m., many of the revelers poured into a cafe overlooking the river. It was a quintessential Kyiv scene: exaggeratedly large wineglasses on sturdy wooden tables, a seafood bar, a display of bottles — impeccable style and a commitment to enjoyment as resistance to the Russian onslaught. But a few minutes after the influx of customers, a waitress announced: “We have no water. I won’t be taking orders.” Seconds later, the electricity went off, taking the music and the lights with it and turning the oyster display cases into dark gray boxes. Most of the customers left. The waiters vanished, too, leaving dirty dishes on many tables. The cafe looked like a movie set after the director shouts “Cut!” and the actors and crew disperse, exhausted.

Kyiv is tired. For most of the four years since Russia began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the capital city has insisted on maintaining or restoring its usual vibrant urban life. Theaters have been operating, as have art galleries and museums (although permanent collections have been stowed away in safe locations); universities and secondary schools have continued in-person instruction; electric bikes and scooters have been well maintained; the metro has kept running; and the railroad has served the city like clockwork. The railroad in particular has become a symbol of Ukrainian nezlamnist — invincibility or, literally, unbreakability.

But with Russia’s attacks on Ukrainian energy infrastructure leaving people without light and heat for weeks on end, living a normal life has become untenable. It is probably fair to say that there isn’t a place or a person left in Ukraine who can forget about the war for even a few minutes.

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M. Gessen is an Opinion columnist for The Times. They won a George Polk Award for opinion writing in 2024. They are the author of 11 books, including “The Future Is History: How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia,” which won the National Book Award in 2017.

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