For a long time last year, Dnipro was considered one of the most calm cities in Ukraine.
“Here is some peaceful life again,” wrote prominent science fiction writer Oleh Ladyzhenskyi when he arrived in Dnipro from Kharkiv. “People and cars on the streets, shops are open, buses are running, there’s nothing exploding anywhere. It seems unnatural.”
Dnipro, one of Ukraine’s largest industrial cities, is relatively close to the war’s front line, which runs from Kherson in the south, through Donbas, to near Kharkiv in the north. The city has been a key logistical and humanitarian hub since Russia’s invasion on 24 February. But by the autumn, it felt as if people in Dnipro preferred to forget the chaos of the first days of the war.
