Empty shelves, spy hunt: Kyiv residents brace for Russian assault

Residents and servicemen alike hunt for Russian spies in Kyiv and supermarkets struggle with logistics as a long Russian military convoy advances slowly towards the city.

The seventh day of Russia’s war on Ukraine began with the sounds of sirens warning of air raids again on Wednesday morning while a number of explosions and shelling incidents were heard overnight.

Maidan Nezalezhnosti, the iconic Independence Square in Kyiv, has been surrounded by barricades with sandbags and anti-tank Czech hedgehogs, as a 64km (40-mile) convoy of Russian tanks and other vehicles advances slowly towards the city.

Spanish ham, French cheese, Swiss chocolate and mangoes delivered straight from Thailand last week, just before the war, are left on the shelves of Silpo, a supermarket chain, in the Pecherskyi district in the city of nearly three million people.

All of the cheaper foods are gone. There is no bread or vegetables, no oils of any kind, and no meat or sausages.

“We’re expecting a delivery tomorrow, it’s not that easy logistically,” Konstantin, a cashier in a face mask adorned with a tiny Ukrainian coat of arms, said.

Not far from Silpo, a dozen people stand patiently near the doors of a pharmacy. It snowed in Kyiv last night, but the snow is melting, and the tweeting of birds is not silenced by the usual drone of traffic.

Except for the queues in front of grocery shops and supermarkets, the streets are empty. People trickle in and out of the nearby underground metro station-turned bomb shelter.

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