Orthodox Christmas decorations and the lights of large stores shine on the snow as people walk on the pavement. Yet just around the corner, a bulldozer is gathering debris from the first missile strikes to hit the city this year, four days ago: rockets struck buildings, wounding 19 people, including a six-month-old baby.

In Kharkiv, the oxymoron of Ukraine's new normal appears more striking than elsewhere. In the country's second most populous city, some 40 kilometres from the Russian border, residents have so far succeeded in resisting.

Despite massive Russian strikes since 2022, people -- including Russian speakers -- have not left their homes and the worst of the war appeared to be over. However, over the past year, Russia has resumed its attacks.

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Over 31,000 refugees arrived over the last two and a half years

"We have decided to stay, even if sirens are still blaring and buildings have once again started to crumble," commented Taras while taking his mother food shopping. There has been no evacuation over the past years.

On the contrary, Kharkiv welcomes refugees hailing from two fronts of the war -- Donbass and the north-eastern territories.

In a large, three-storey building on the outskirts of the city, formerly a school, an emergency line and other helplines managed by humanitarian organizations respond to calls on a daily basis: when the Russians are near their homes, people call and those manning the phones dispatch buses or ambulances to take entire families, as well as those living alone, to safety.

"Entire groups are sometimes rescued on the street while they are fleeing on foot, willing to walk for dozens of kilometres in order to leave behind the inferno enveloping their homes," said Alla Sherstiuk, the centre's coordinator.

"Sometimes, enemy drones kill someone as they are fleeing."

Over the past two and a half years, more than 31,000 refugees have reached the city from the entire region and part of Donetsk's oblast. They subsequently move in with relatives or stay in hostels.

Meanwhile the center aiding refugees, through the displaced keeping in touch with civilians who are still under fire, records the decreasing number of those left in areas ravaged by the conflict.

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Sergiy, 57, who has just arrived from Kostantinovka, used to work in a coal mine: "There were 100,000 people in my city before the war. There are 800 now, all very old people who will die there, I think. If everything goes well, they will be buried in the gardens of their homes, as occurs now," he said.

Since last October, people have arrived en masse from Kupiansk, south-east of the city. "That has also become a place where there is only fighting and perhaps just 100 civilians have remained -- we have realized this because people have flocked here in just a few weeks," she noted.

Many, like Georgiy and his wife Irina from the village of Studenok, leave when they see the shadows of drones over the roof of their home.

Some don't survive: Igor, 54, saw his wife die in front of his eyes in Kupiansk. She was killed while they were attempting to flee together. Her husband, who has not spoken a word since, couldn't even return home to bury her. (Picture shows volunteers distributing humanitarian aid near an Orthodox church in Kharkiv, Ukraine. PHOTO/ARCHIVE/EPA/SERGEY KOZLOV).

Author: Lorenzo Attianese