Another Night in Kharkiv: The Republic of the Bar

By Matthew Parish

Monday 28 September 2026

There is a moment in certain Kharkiv evenings when civilisation quietly ends. Nobody announces this. There is no revolution, no barricade and no solemn declaration that the established order has been suspended. Somebody simply orders another whisky, you look at your watch and realise that all the rules by which respectable European cities normally operate have become irrelevant.

Tonight that moment arrives shortly after I notice the blood on the bar. There isn’t very much of it: a few splashes across the polished surface, dark red beneath the lights. Nobody appears particularly concerned about where it came from. The barman wipes around it rather than over it, which somehow makes the situation more disturbing. I consider asking, then decide that Kharkiv has taught me better manners than that.

Two English soldiers in the Ukrainian Armed Forces are conducting a competition nearby. The purpose is to establish which of them can invent the most offensive insult involving an ethnic minority. The rules are unclear, although originality appears to count for more than plausibility and virtually every population on earth is eligible for inclusion.

It is a magnificently British spectacle, and neither contestant appears to possess any actual hostility towards the minorities being invoked. The object is simply to shock the other Englishman. This is an ancient British military tradition whose origins presumably predate Agincourt and whose rules have never been written down because writing them down would probably constitute evidence.

One produces an obscenity and the other considers it. “That’s weak,” he says. Another follows. “Better.” A Ukrainian at the next table asks me what they are talking about. “British culture,” I explain. He nods gravely, and this appears to satisfy him.

At the other end of the bar, meanwhile, several people are discussing how to reach various dangerous parts of Donetsk oblast without being killed. The conversation has the tone of commuters comparing railway connections. One road is apparently acceptable in the morning but unpleasant after lunch. Another is faster but attracts drones. A third has become “complicated”, a word that in eastern Ukraine can encompass everything from roadworks to immediate death.

Someone asks about the probability of an FPV strike and opinions differ. Three per cent, someone suggests. More, says another. Five? Depends where. Depends on the weather. Depends whether they are hunting. I listen with fascination as the participants construct an actuarial science for which no insurance company has yet produced a policy.

The percentages are obviously invented, because nobody possesses a sufficiently large statistical sample to calculate the probability of being struck by an FPV drone while travelling down a particular road in Donetsk oblast at eleven thirty on a Tuesday morning. Nevertheless everyone has a figure. This is because human beings dislike uncertainty but adore numbers. A danger with no numerical value is terrifying; a danger described as three per cent is merely something to be incorporated into one’s itinerary.

“Three per cent isn’t bad,” somebody concludes, and everybody agrees. Another round arrives, because this is Kharkiv.

A Ukrainian man starts talking to me in Russian and after several minutes interrupts himself to ask where I am from. “England,” I tell him. He looks astonished and tells me that I have an excellent Russian accent. I am absurdly pleased.

Compliments become strange during wartime. In London somebody might compliment your jacket. In Kharkiv a man praises your Russian pronunciation while two metres away somebody is estimating the probability of being killed by a flying explosive. My new acquaintance then explains his philosophy of violence, which is refreshingly uncomplicated.

His view is that Western Europeans spend too much time discussing problems that could be resolved with a punch. Violence, properly administered, has an economy about it. Everybody understands the result immediately and unnecessary correspondence is avoided. I suggest that there may be legal objections. He looks disappointed in me and says, “English.” I accept the criticism.

By now the composition of the bar has become increasingly unusual, because almost nobody has an ordinary job. This man is SBU. That man is apparently SBU as well, although perhaps from a different part of SBU and therefore technically unrelated to the first man. Somebody else is military intelligence. Another is special forces. Another does something involving drones. Another works with a unit whose name is spoken so rapidly that I suspect I am not supposed to remember it.

One man simply says that he works “for the government”, and nobody asks which part. This is regarded as sufficient biographical information. The remarkable thing is that everybody is getting drunk.

I had once imagined intelligence officers as austere people sitting in windowless rooms studying encrypted communications. Perhaps they do this during office hours. Tonight they are drinking vodka and arguing about football. The special forces people are drinking, the soldiers are drinking, the intelligence people are drinking, the foreigners are drinking and the mysterious government man is drinking. Even the barman appears to be drinking.

The blood remains on the counter and nobody mentions it. Then she appears.

She is exceptionally beautiful and dressed entirely in black: a tight halter top, fitted black jeans and high-heeled boots. In another city she might be entering an expensive nightclub. Here she walks into a room populated by soldiers, intelligence officers, drone specialists and men calculating the statistical likelihood of violent death on roads towards Donetsk. Nobody finds this incongruous, because nothing is incongruous in Kharkiv any more.

She sits near me and we talk. After a while she explains, with impressive directness, the professional services she can provide. There is no embarrassment and no elaborate euphemism. Capitalism survives even Russian invasion. I decline politely, she accepts this without offence and moves on. I admire her professionalism.

The evening continues as somebody produces cigarettes and somebody else receives a telephone call and disappears outside. Another person returns with a man whose occupation is even more mysterious than everyone else’s. The English soldiers have abandoned ethnic minorities and moved on to insulting each other’s regiments, while the blood on the bar has partly dried.

Then I look at my watch and realise that something is seriously wrong. We should have left hours ago. Kharkiv has a curfew. Kharkiv always has a curfew.

For years curfew has structured the psychology of Ukrainian cities. Dinner finishes because of curfew, dates finish because of curfew and drinking finishes because of curfew. People calculate their evenings backwards from the moment when the streets must empty. Yet the bar is open, nobody is leaving and nobody is even looking anxious.

I begin developing theories. Perhaps the SBU officers have some exemption; obviously they do. Perhaps the soldiers have exemptions; probably. Perhaps the special forces have exemptions; certainly. Perhaps the mysterious government man can simply abolish curfew personally; increasingly plausible. But what about me?

Eventually I ask, and someone stares at me. “Curfew is abolished,” he says. “What?” I reply. “Abolished.” When I ask when, he shrugs. Apparently I am the last person in Kharkiv to discover this.

I sit back because this changes everything. For years Ukrainian nights have possessed an artificial cliff. However chaotic an evening became, eventually the clock restored order. The state intervened and told everybody to go home. Now the state has disappeared from the equation. The night has no end, so I order another whisky.

Outside is Kharkiv, one of the great improbable cities of Europe. Russia has tried to destroy it repeatedly. Missiles have fallen on apartment buildings. Glide bombs have demolished homes. Restaurants, offices, universities and streets have been damaged or destroyed. People have been killed while shopping, working, sleeping and drinking coffee.

Russia’s theory appears to have been that sufficient terror would persuade Kharkiv to become frightened, but this theory has encountered practical difficulties. Kharkiv certainly understands fear. It merely refuses to organise its entire existence around it. The result is a peculiar form of anarchy.

It is not political anarchy, because the Ukrainian state is everywhere. Police cars pass outside, soldiers fill the streets and security services occupy tables in bars. Documents, checkpoints, military units and bureaucracies proliferate. Yet beneath this immense machinery of wartime government lies another Kharkiv entirely, and this Kharkiv operates according to rules nobody has written.

You drink tonight because tomorrow somebody may send you east. You discuss drone probabilities because terror becomes manageable once converted into percentages. You insult your friends because affection between soldiers is frequently expressed through language that would cause a university disciplinary committee to explode. You compliment an Englishman’s Russian accent, explain why punching people saves time, offer your services to strangers and leave unexplained blood on bars. Above all, nobody goes home.

There is something profoundly unhealthy about all this, but there is also something magnificent about it. Perhaps these two observations are not contradictory. War strips away enormous quantities of social pretence. People become simultaneously better and worse. Generosity becomes extraordinary and cruelty becomes casual. Friendships form in hours and relationships collapse overnight. People give away their last money and steal somebody else’s cigarettes.

Everything accelerates because life itself accelerates. This may explain the strange sanctuary I find in places like this, where nobody is pretending that life is safe.

In western Europe enormous industries exist to conceal mortality. Death takes place behind hospital curtains. Danger is reduced to warning labels. Insurance companies translate catastrophe into premiums. Governments produce regulations designed to eliminate every conceivable risk. In Kharkiv somebody tells you that tomorrow’s road carries a three per cent probability of an FPV strike, and then he orders another drink.

There is a brutal clarity in this, and perhaps even optimism. It is not the optimism of motivational posters and conference speeches. Nobody here believes that everything will necessarily be all right. The optimism is more primitive: it consists of ordering another drink, making plans for tomorrow and discussing which road to take.

Because discussing tomorrow’s road contains an assumption that there will be a tomorrow in which somebody travels down it. That is optimism in wartime.

The English soldiers are still arguing and the SBU officers are still drinking. The special forces people are still refusing to explain precisely what they do. The beautiful woman in black is talking to somebody else. The mysterious government man has disappeared. The blood remains on the bar, and nobody knows whose it is. Or perhaps everybody knows and nobody thinks it worth explaining.

I suddenly realise that I have no intention of leaving. For years Russia has attempted to make Kharkiv afraid of darkness, but tonight darkness feels like freedom. There is no curfew, there is no closing time that anybody seems interested in observing and there is no sensible reason why I should still be here.

Yet surrounded by soldiers, spies, adventurers, opportunists, drunks, women conducting the oldest sort of private enterprise, drone specialists and men who believe interpersonal disputes are best resolved through immediate physical violence, I experience an unexpected sensation: peace. It occurs to me that I am sitting inside a tiny republic.

It is the Republic of the Bar. Its constitution has never been written and its borders extend as far as the front door. Its currency is whisky, its armed forces are considerable, its intelligence services are wildly overrepresented, its laws are unclear and its immigration policy exceptionally liberal.

Its national philosophy is equally uncomplicated: tomorrow may be terrible, but tonight the bar is open. Outside, somewhere to the east, drones are flying over roads whose probabilities have just been debated. Inside, someone laughs and a glass breaks. The barman pours another whisky as the blood dries, and Kharkiv, gloriously, impossibly and perhaps irresponsibly, stays awake.