Every morning at the stroke of nine, in the western Ukrainian city of Chernivtsi, the entire town square comes to a standstill for a moment of silence to mourn the war dead.
Languid, operatic music flows from a speaker positioned on a wrought iron balcony overlooking the cobblestone square.
For a few minutes, as the sun beams down and flags snap in the wind, everyone and everything stops.
Chernivtsi, tucked into the southwest corner of Ukraine, hundreds of miles from the front, has never been hit by a missile — and it’s not small, 300,000 people.
There are few checkpoints or military vehicles or clumps of young men in camouflage crowding the coffee machine at the supermarket — like there always are in Ukraine’s cities in the east, center and south.
Persons:
there’s
Organizations:
Police
Locations:
Ukrainian, Chernivtsi, Ukraine