Running out of Cigarettes in the Battle for Kyjiv

Kyiv was green once. Then came the concrete – and then the bombs. Darya also talks about public procurement and corruption in Ukraine today.

Today I'm joined by Darya from Kyiv. She'll take us back to the early days of the Ukrainian capital — a city once defined by its abundance of green spaces and parks, and how that character gradually gave way to concrete and rapid urban development over the decades.

Darya will share how she experienced the Euromaidan 2014 and the first days of Russia's full-scale invasion in February 2022 and the battle for Kyiv — including the small, very human details of those terrifying weeks, like running out of cigarettes under siege.

We'll also talk about corruption — a structural problem that has long weighed on Ukraine's development. And yet the picture is more nuanced than many assume: Ukraine today actually boasts one of the more transparent public procurement systems in the world, outperforming a number of Western European countries in this regard. But transparency on paper doesn't mean the fight is won. Darya has plenty to say about that.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B115PKRj8jU