It was the middle of the night in early January when a Russian missile streaked in and exploded in the center of Kharkiv, blasting down walls and shattering windows.
The next day, people went shopping and to work, ate out in restaurants and clogged the streets with traffic jams, almost as if nothing had happened.
But behind the business-as-usual veneer, residents of Kharkiv have been seething. Over the past month, Ukraine’s second-largest city has taken the brunt of Russia’s missile campaign, which has killed and wounded dozens of people, blown up buildings and unnerved everyone.
It’s an almost daily torment. To vent, Kharkiv’s residents have a dedicated outlet: Radio Boiling Over, a new FM station.
“This is Boiling Over in the Morning,” Oleksandr Serdyuk, the host of the morning call-in show, said on a recent broadcast. “What are you boiling over about today?”
In Kharkiv, a sprawling city of universities and factories, coping has taken many forms.
Nearly two years into the war, the city is opening schools underground. Psychologists visit strike sites to calm residents. Plywood goes up immediately over blown-out windows.