January 1, 2026 It’s 12:56 AM. My family and I have just greeted the New Year together. We heard explosions nearby and a siren wailing over the city: Russian drones. Explosions were also reported in Odessa, Donetsk, and the Sumy region, and drones were detected flying in the direction of Kyiv and its surroundings. And yet I am calm and happy: For New Year’s we had our family’s special roasted duck. Just like my mom used to make. January 2, 2026 Yesterday was my friend Dania’s birthday. Friends toasted to him tonight. We told stories and celebrated his life. But just as I was walking home suddenly the wound of losing him opened up again, and so here I am sobbing in the middle of downtown Kyiv close to midnight, a military curfew. War keeps taking the best of us. January 5, 2026 1:48 AM Two Russian bombs have just been detected. If the report is accurate, missile launches will begin four hours from now. It will take them about an hour to reach Ukraine post-launch, so they will arrive around 6 AM (if they are coming). Do I feel anything as I write this? No. My brain takes care of itself. I feel only that I have a cup of tea to make and there’s a car chase in Inception (which I just paused) that I want to continue watching. 2:42 AM I am in a hallway and Russia just attacked the city with ballistic missiles. Heard very loud explosions. Doors are shaking, which means that the attack is close enough for the sound of the blast wave to reach us before we could hear the rounds of smaller explosions and the sound of air defense shooting down Russian drones. I am in a puff jacket because it’s quite cold here in the hallway. It’s warm in my room, but it’s safer out here. 2:48 AM Monitoring channels report that Russian Shahed drones are falling on the southern part of Kyiv and I am trying hard to remember whether I am in the south or the north. 3:03 AM I am sitting on a hallway floor feeling the warmth leave my body second by second. I decide that I can’t stand it anymore, that I need a hot cup of tea and I need my warm room, but as I move to open the door I hear what sounds like a Russian Shahed drone buzzing, and adrenaline starts pumping into my blood as the buzzes get louder. I open the door and inside the buzz gets even louder. Just as I am about to panic I see through the window that it’s only a trash truck driving past my building. I exhale. I make my cup of hot tea and take a sip. God, tea never tasted better. 6:38 PM You don’t know true luxury until you’ve seen your lights stay on for three minutes after a blackout was supposed to have started. Oh what bliss: the heater is still working. My home is warm and well lit. I am so rich. January 6, 2026 Being adventurous means deciding to wash your hair despite the fact that there is again a blackout in Kyiv: you will have to dry your hair, and it is getting colder inside your apartment by the minute, and you have only an hour and half until you need to leave home, and outside it is minus one degrees. But you have a feeling that it’s all going to work out. January 8, 2026 4:50 AM Blackouts got so bad in the city of Dnipro today that its metro stopped. Trains didn’t run. Escalators didn’t work. People were evacuated from the tunnels. This might sound like some thrilling post-apocalyptic movie script, but thanks to Russia it is life in Ukraine now. 11:39 PM Talking to my dad and there is an explosion outside. Russian drones are attacking Kyiv at this minute. 11:52 PM I hear our air defenses shooting down Russian drones over Kyiv at midnight while having a relentless cough that just won’t stop. A very special way to spend a Thursday night. January 9, 2026 12:12 AM Russian drones are attacking Kyiv and I have a violent reaction to a loud noise, but it’s just the neighbor upstairs moving a chair. 1:33 AM The explosions continue: now the drones are attacking the thermal power station. It feels like negative eleven degrees outside. Yes, Russia wants to freeze us. 2:39 AM A couple of blasts that sounded just like thunder. Almost familiar. Oh, here is another one — rocking my building gently. 9:33 PM This evening I learned from my doctor that air raid siren alerts had started in Kyiv. I was in his office at my appointment. We had just finished — and good thing we did, because doctors don’t work in public hospitals during air raid siren alerts. “Not great,” the doctor said, “after Oreshnik yesterday.” “Yeah,” I replied, “though my blocked ear pisses me off much more.” He smiled. Bonding in Ukraine on a Friday night. January 11, 2026 I don’t have gas here so I am hoping there will be electricity in the morning because otherwise there will be no green tea for me and that will make me mad. January 13, 2026 Since about midnight we haven’t had electricity in my part of Kyiv. It came back on ten minutes ago. That’s more than seventeen hours without light. The longest so far. The streets outside looked pitch dark, I couldn’t see the other bank of the river at all. Have I started to panic? I’d say a bit. It’s inhumane. What Russia is doing to us is inhumane. And after a while, however heroic or stoic or resilient you think you are, sooner or later you will learn that resilience has a price. Just as I’m discovering now. It is scary. January 16, 2026 It is midnight and an air raid siren is wailing over the city because Russia
There's nothing Artificial about our Intelligence