Kyiv War Diary
by Margo Gontar
This is a preview essay from the Spring 2026 issue of Liberties, exclusively available on Substack before the issue goes live on libertiesjournal.com.
Margo Gontar is a writer and activist based in Kyiv, Ukraine, who shares on-the-ground realities from four years of war propagated by Russia. You can read more from her at Stories with Margo.
January 1, 2026
It’s 12:56 AM. My family and I have just greeted the New Year together. We heard explosions nearby and a siren wailing over the city: Russian drones. Explosions were also reported in Odessa, Donetsk, and the Sumy region, and drones were detected flying in the direction of Kyiv and its surroundings. And yet I am calm and happy: For New Year’s we had our family’s special roasted duck. Just like my mom used to make.
January 2, 2026
Yesterday was my friend Dania’s birthday. Friends toasted to him tonight. We told stories and celebrated his life. But just as I was walking home suddenly the wound of losing him opened up again, and so here I am sobbing in the middle of downtown Kyiv close to midnight, a military curfew.
War keeps taking the best of us.
January 5, 2026
1:48 AM
Two Russian bombs have just been detected. If the report is accurate, missile launches will begin four hours from now. It will take them about an hour to reach Ukraine post-launch, so they will arrive around 6 AM (if they are coming). Do I feel anything as I write this? No. My brain takes care of itself. I feel only that I have a cup of tea to make and there’s a car chase in Inception (which I just paused) that I want to continue watching.
2:42 AM
I am in a hallway and Russia just attacked the city with ballistic missiles. Heard very loud explosions. Doors are shaking, which means that the attack is close enough for the sound of the blast wave to reach us before we could hear the rounds of smaller explosions and the sound of air defense shooting down Russian drones. I am in a puff jacket because it’s quite cold here in the hallway. It’s warm in my room, but it’s safer out here.
2:48 AM
Monitoring channels report that Russian Shahed drones are falling on the southern part of Kyiv and I am trying hard to remember whether I am in the south or the north.
3:03 AM
I am sitting on a hallway floor feeling the warmth leave my body second by second. I decide that I can’t stand it anymore, that I need a hot cup of tea and I need my warm room, but as I move to open the door I hear what sounds like a Russian Shahed drone buzzing, and adrenaline starts pumping into my blood as the buzzes get louder. I open the door and inside the buzz gets even louder. Just as I am about to panic I see through the window that it’s only a trash truck driving past my building. I exhale. I make my cup of hot tea and take a sip. God, tea never tasted better.
6:38 PM
You don’t know true luxury until you’ve seen your lights stay on for three minutes after a blackout was supposed to have started. Oh what bliss: the heater is still working. My home is warm and well lit. I am so rich.
January 6, 2026
Being adventurous means deciding to wash your hair despite the fact that there is again a blackout in Kyiv: you will have to dry your hair, and it is getting colder inside your apartment by the minute, and you have only an hour and half until you need to leave home, and outside it is minus one degrees. But you have a feeling that it’s all going to work out.
January 8, 2026
4:50 AM
Blackouts got so bad in the city of Dnipro today that its metro stopped. Trains didn’t run. Escalators didn’t work. People were evacuated from the tunnels. This might sound like some thrilling post-apocalyptic movie script, but thanks to Russia it is life in Ukraine now.
11:39 PM
Talking to my dad and there is an explosion outside. Russian drones are attacking Kyiv at this minute.
11:52 PM
I hear our air defenses shooting down Russian drones over Kyiv at midnight while having a relentless cough that just won’t stop. A very special way to spend a Thursday night.
January 9, 2026
12:12 AM
Russian drones are attacking Kyiv and I have a violent reaction to a loud noise, but it’s just the neighbor upstairs moving a chair.
1:33 AM
The explosions continue: now the drones are attacking the thermal power station. It feels like negative eleven degrees outside. Yes, Russia wants to freeze us.
2:39 AM
A couple of blasts that sounded just like thunder. Almost familiar. Oh, here is another one — rocking my building gently.
9:33 PM
This evening I learned from my doctor that air raid siren alerts had started in Kyiv. I was in his office at my appointment. We had just finished — and good thing we did, because doctors don’t work in public hospitals during air raid siren alerts. “Not great,” the doctor said, “after Oreshnik yesterday.” “Yeah,” I replied, “though my blocked ear pisses me off much more.” He smiled. Bonding in Ukraine on a Friday night.
January 11, 2026
I don’t have gas here so I am hoping there will be electricity in the morning because otherwise there will be no green tea for me and that will make me mad.
January 13, 2026
Since about midnight we haven’t had electricity in my part of Kyiv. It came back on ten minutes ago. That’s more than seventeen hours without light. The longest so far. The streets outside looked pitch dark, I couldn’t see the other bank of the river at all. Have I started to panic? I’d say a bit.
It’s inhumane. What Russia is doing to us is inhumane.
And after a while, however heroic or stoic or resilient you think you are, sooner or later you will learn that resilience has a price. Just as I’m discovering now. It is scary.
January 16, 2026
It is midnight and an air raid siren is wailing over the city because Russia is preparing to attack us yet again. A ballistic missile threat. It’s the fifth air raid siren alert today.
10:00 PM
I woke up to find the electricity on in my part of Kyiv. How did I know it was on? My sister suddenly started shouting “woo” from the kitchen and singing “I’ve got the power.”
January 17, 2026
Hello to all from Kyiv. It’s 9:30 PM here and we have had no light since... I honestly don’t know when it went off. It certainly has been dark for over seven hours. We have no schedules now — it can go out at any moment. But still I’m thankful. You could say I’m privileged: we have heating and gas here, so hot tea is available. Others have it worse, there are buildings where ice is on the inside already. And there are reports that Russia could attack our energy systems again — today or tomorrow — and that is... what I’m trying not to think about.
11:44 PM
The light was just restored to my part of Kyiv after almost ten hours of blackout. A happy moment.
January 18, 2026
12:27 PM
Oh the luxury of boiling water in an electric kettle after ten hours in darkness!
January 19, 2026
8:03 PM
Here we go again: the light just went out. And so the usual routine starts: we switch to blackout lighting — turn on the small pre-charged flashlights in the kitchen — check; bathroom flashlight — check; the Christmas lights in the room — check. No talking, just switching everything on. It’s a kind of ritual now.
January 20, 2026
12:41 PM
Electricity is back in my part of Kyiv and we have heating, but no water supply. “For a change” my sister said. “Keep things from getting boring.”
Not boring at all.
January 21, 2026
11:50 AM
The first thing I heard when I woke up was my dad and my sister talking. Turns out he came to visit us and make us breakfast — we have a gas stove and he doesn’t, and the electricity is down in my section of Kyiv. We all gathered in our small kitchen. I made the tea, dad made the oats, my sister worked on her laptop. And for a second I forgot it was all because of Russia’s bombs, I forgot about the war.
It was just... nice, being all together like this.
January 23, 2026
1:30 PM
Yesterday the impossible happened: we had electricity for almost the whole day! After days of blackouts. I charged everything. I mean everything. After nothing was left to charge, the electricity was still on.
That’s when I started getting nervous.
3:19 PM
Woke up to no electricity in my part of Kyiv. Then the water went out too. “Maybe the heat will turn off soon,” my sister mused when I got to the kitchen. We checked to see if there were bottles that we could fill with hot water for warmth that night, and we planned to get a whole pot of water boiling on the gas stove to warm the kitchen.
Just a typical morning chat in Kyiv.
January 24, 2026
1:25 AM
The air raid siren is on because Russia is attacking us with drones. I hate the beginning of the siren, that loud first note and the way it starts rising, crawling through your bones and muscles. It’s the most disgusting part of the whole experience. It gets under your skin. I was told once that they made it irritating and disgusting on purpose, so that it would be difficult for people to ignore it. It’s revolting in order to save lives. There’s a certain irony in that.
1:31 AM
Detonations again. Doors shaking. Explosions continue. Air defense work.
1:39 AM
Drones and missiles. Heard many explosions. As I write this, air defense is trying to shoot down — what? — a Russian drone by the sound of it. We have been warned that more are coming.
1:53 AM
In a hallway, trembling. Not because I’m frightened but because it feels as if part of every explosion gets stuck in my body, and maybe it does. And every subsequent one makes my body shake more.
1:56 AM
It is amazing, in a way, how normal air defense work now sounds to me. Like the most mundane thing. Like the sound of a generator. The buzzing. A mundane and precious thing that keeps us alive.
2:04 AM
Russian bombers just launched missiles in the direction of Ukraine, reports say.
2:33 AM
Fuck it was so loud and sudden! I almost screamed. Now I’m shaking and it’s stuck in my chest.
2:42 AM
“Have no idea how we managed to not go fucking insane from all of this:” a monitoring channel that reports on Russian drones and missiles just posted that. “Oh we did, a long time ago,” the first commenter replied. “Yeah, we did big time, we just don’t notice it yet,” said the next one. “My neighbor threw beer bottles out the window to shoot down a Russian Shahed drone” wrote someone called Alexander.
And I thought to myself, shooting down a Shahed drone with a beer bottle. Huh.
3:10 AM
The radiator battery started making weird sounds just after the explosions. It’s still a bit warm but it is certainly colder than it was before.
1:07 PM
Temperature already dropped two degrees in the room.
Went for a walk to a spot where my parents used to bring me as a kid and saw people sledding and skating. That is what the people of Kyiv did the day after Russia bombed us. We went sledding and skating because fuck you Russia, that’s why.
6:41 PM
I managed to warm our rooms a bit with heaters, but the light went out. Still no heat and it’s negative twelve degrees in Kyiv right now. The darkness and the cold are slowly crawling in through the windows with no heating to protect us. Vaguely unnerving.
7:56 PM
Just put on my third pair of socks. Already in a hat. Warm sweater and a puff coat. Blackout in Kyiv, and no heat for seventeen hours now.
9:22 PM
Just heard my neighbor shouting “there is hot water!” with excitement and I’m now just so happy for them.
January 25, 2026
1:04 PM
The heat is back! Radiator is still a bit colder than usual, but it’s warm again!
4:21 PM
A Russian drone just hit an apartment building in Kharkiv. There are casualties.
5:08 PM
I just used a microwave. I forgot we even have one. Right before I managed to switch on my electric kettle. Standing in the kitchen feeling like a billionaire.
January 26, 2026
2:09 PM
I’ve never felt a Kyiv winter this cold in my entire life.
2:45 PM
Light returned but went off after less than two hours. Feeling strangely relieved: I felt guilty having light while so many others in Kyiv did not.
6:39 PM
The lights are back again and the street looks festive. I just finished a therapy session. The connection was breaking every ten minutes. Russia bombed all our power stations. I thought I’d be sad but instead I feel light and good for the first time in a while. I somehow stumbled upon the set of a DJ I once liked and here I am dancing in the middle of my room with Christmas lights on and windows in the building opposite shining yellow and white and me shimmying because I am okay. I am okay.
“Kyiv War Diary” is the Substack-exclusive preview to the Spring 2026 issue of Liberties, available on shelves April 28, 2026.
To read the rest of the issue, including writing from Oksana Forostyna, Michael Grunwald, and Robert Rubsam, subscribe here.
