攻撃に備え、息ひそめる要塞都市キエフ

【ＡＦＰ＝時事】土のうを積み、武器を蓄え、ウクライナの首都キエフは待っている。（写真はキエフの検問所で、配置に就く兵士）
　ロシアのウクライナ侵攻から１か月。キエフの北西・東部でのロシアの進軍は鈍化したようにみえる。
　商店などは閉鎖を命じられ、市民は自宅にとどまるよう指示されており、キエフはゴーストタウンのようになっている。
　定期的に鳴る空襲警報と遠くで聞こえる爆発音が、静寂を打ち破る。聖ソフィア大聖堂の金色の円屋根は、春の日差しに輝いている。
　ボクシング元世界チャンピオンのビタリ・クリチコ市長は、２１日から２３日朝まで外出禁止令を出していた。
　キエフ市内でＡＦＰ取材班を案内したアレクシスさんは、侵攻前はドイツ語を教えていた。「侵攻開始以来ずっと、切迫する状況に置かれてきたから、（外出禁止令で）一息つける」とし、「どのみち、みんな心に傷を負っている。そんなに外に出たいとは思っていない」と話す。
　ロシアが侵攻した２月２４日以降、人口３５０万人を擁するキエフから、大半の女性や子どもが避難した。
　残っているのは、高齢者や首都を守る兵士だ。
　弁護士だった志願兵のマキシム・コステツキーさん（２９）は、春の陽気も相まって、外出禁止令は「休息」のように感じると語った。
　「ロシア軍がキエフを包囲し続けるのかは分からない。ただ、私たちの自信は増していて、士気は高い」
　市内には、コンクリート製のブロックでつくられた検問所が点在している。ブロックにはスプレーで「ウクライナに栄光あれ」「止まれ！」という言葉や、ロシア軍は出ていけなどののしりも書かれている。
　北・西・東側の市境や路地、交差点には、土のうや対戦車障害物「チェコのハリネズミ」が無数に置かれている。
　かつて市民がキノコ狩りを楽しんだ北部の郊外の森には、兵士を埋葬する穴が掘られている。
　ドニプロ川を見渡せる丘の上にある中心部では、一見すると戦争など起きていないかのようだ。しかし、通行できる橋は二つしか残されていない。
　西岸にある、１９３０年代に数百万人が犠牲となった大飢饉（ききん）の追悼碑のそばでは、６０代の女性が外出禁止令を無視して犬の散歩をしていた。
　民主主義運動の舞台に２度なった独立広場も土のうで埋め尽くされている。
　コステツキーさんは「選択肢がないとはいえ、私たちは楽観的だ」と話した。「私たちは国を守っているんだ。私たちの国をただ破壊したい（ロシアの）ウラジーミル・プーチン（大統領）から」【翻訳編集ＡＦＰＢＢＮｅｗｓ】
〔ＡＦＰ＝時事〕（2022/03/24-13:07）

Filled with mountains of sandbags and weapons at the ready, Kyiv is waiting.
On day 27 of Russia's invasion, the advance of troops northwest and east of the Ukrainian capital seems to have stalled and residents are taking advantage of a curfew to catch their breath and prepare.
With businesses ordered closed and residents told to stay home, Kyiv is a ghost town, with air sirens and distant sounds of explosions regularly punching through the silence and the golden cupolas of the landmark Saint Sophia Orthodox cathedral shining in spring sun.
Kyiv mayor and former world boxing champion Vitali Klitschko imposed the curfew from Monday until Wednesday morning, telling civilians to seek cover in bomb shelters if air defence sirens go off.
For people who have been constantly under pressure since the start of the invasion, it's a chance to breathe a little, says Alexis, who taught German before the war and guides an AFP team through the city.
At any rate, they are traumatised, they don't really want to go out.
- 'Morale is high' -
Many of Kyiv's 3.5 million residents, mostly women and children, have fled the capital since Russia invaded on Feb 24.
Those that remain are mostly the elderly and those who will defend the city: soldiers as well as those who enlisted in volunteer defence units.
Maxym Kostetskyi, a 29-year-old lawyer-turned-volunteer fighter, says the curfew feels like a break, especially with the warmer spring weather.
We don't know if the Russians will keep trying to encircle the city, but we are much more confident, morale is high, he adds.
In the deserted streets, only white police cars with blue stripes and a few military trucks and rare civilian vehicles drive by, full of armed men in military fatigues.
Kyiv is dotted with checkpoints made of concrete blocks. On them is written in spray paint: Glory to Ukraine, Stop! as well as curses and demands that Russian troops get out.
On Kyiv's northern, eastern and western edges, alleys and intersections are filled with walls of sandbags and anti-tank hedgehogs, made of bars welded into crosses.
A forest on the northern outskirts of the city, where residents once went mushroom-picking and dined in a fine Argentine restaurant called Rancho el Gaucho has been turned into trenches where fallen soldiers are buried.
- 'Cannot take Kyiv' -
Olga Alievska, a 38-year-old marketing specialist, has remained in Kyiv, hopeful that the Russians do not want, and above all cannot take Kyiv.
For now, they have been bombing military facilities mostly, not civilians, Alievska says.
But after Russian strikes destroyed a state-of-the-art shopping mall here on Sunday, killing eight people, fears are running high.
But in the heart of the capital, on the hills overlooking the spectacular Dnipro river, where only two bridges remain open to traffic, war seems almost distant.
At the foot of the 11th century Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra, known as the Monastery of the Caves, soldiers and weapons less visible.
On Kyiv's left bank, ignoring the curfew, a woman in her sixties walks her dogs near a solemn memorial to the victims of the Great Famine of the 1930s, in which millions of Ukrainians perished.
The famous Maidan Square, the scene of two of Ukraine's pro-Western revolutions, is also filled with heaps of sandbags.
Today, we are optimistic, even if we don't have a choice, says Kostetskyi, the volunteer soldier. We are protecting our country against someone, against Vladimir Putin, who just wants to destroy our country.