Russia’s new daytime attacks put millions of lives on hold

Tim Hryshchuk did not imagine spending his first day at school in a basement. But when the air raid alert sounded in Kyiv on September 2, the 5-year-old and his new classmates had no choice but to head underground.

That’s what happens when one starts school during a war.

Russian aerial attacks have become larger and more frequent since Moscow scaled up its drone production at the start of the year. But while most of these assaults used to come at night, there have been more daytime threats in recent weeks.

Kyiv alone has experienced more than 1,800 air alerts, lasting more than 2,200 hours in total, since Russia launched its unprovoked full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. In the first two weeks of this month, there were, on average, two air raid alarms a day.

Each one of th