What is frightening about Chuhuiv?
By Matthew Parish
Friday 16 October 2026
There are certain towns in Ukraine that ought to come with a government health warning. Not because they are particularly unpleasant, nor because their inhabitants are unfriendly, but because the visitor is liable to discover, rather too late, that the laws of ordinary civilisation have been temporarily suspended. Chuhuiv, is one of these places. Situated in the Kharkiv region of northeastern Ukraine, it is a perfectly respectable provincial town with an unfortunate geographical disadvantage: it is located within the general vicinity of a neighbouring country whose government has developed an enthusiasm for launching explosive objects at Ukrainian civilians. The Russian Federation has never been particularly discriminating about its targets, and Chuhuiv has had the misfortune to become one of the places where this regrettable tendency can be studied at close quarters.
At first sight there is nothing especially terrifying about Chuhuiv. It is not a sprawling industrial metropolis, nor a labyrinth of sinister medieval alleyways in which murderous conspiracies are being hatched behind every wooden door. It has ordinary Ukrainian streets, ordinary houses, ordinary shops and ordinary people who would generally prefer to be left alone. Its inhabitants have the usual aspirations of humanity: to earn a living, raise their children, enjoy the occasional alcoholic beverage and die at a reasonably advanced age of something other than high explosives. These ambitions are not particularly revolutionary, although apparently they are regarded in Moscow as a form of dangerous political extremism.
What makes Chuhuiv frightening is precisely its ordinariness. Here one encounters the disconcerting spectacle of normal human existence continuing in circumstances in which normal human existence ought, according to every reasonable calculation, to have ceased. People go shopping, repair their houses, complain about the weather and discuss the price of groceries, while in the background the machinery of modern warfare continues its operations with the impersonal efficiency of a particularly malevolent municipal authority. The result is an atmosphere that is simultaneously absurd and profoundly disturbing, in which the distinction between everyday life and mortal danger has become almost meaningless.
Chuhuiv represents something of a philosophical problem for the comfortable inhabitants of Western Europe. We tend to imagine war as an exceptional condition, something that interrupts ordinary life and must therefore be brought to a conclusion as rapidly as possible so that everybody can return to their preferred routines. In eastern Ukraine, however, war has become a routine in itself, and the challenge is not merely to survive its occasional eruptions but to construct an entire existence around its permanent presence. This requires a degree of psychological adaptation that is difficult to comprehend until one has spent time in the region, and perhaps impossible to understand completely without living there.
The town has a distinguished and somewhat ominous history. Founded as a Cossack frontier settlement in the seventeenth century, Chuhuiv subsequently became an important centre of military settlements under the Russian Empire. In 1819 its military settlers revolted against the oppressive arrangements imposed upon them, only to discover that imperial Russia’s understanding of constructive dialogue involved the brutal suppression of the rebellion. The great painter Ilya Repin was born here in 1844, and his artistic imagination was shaped in part by the military society in which he grew up. Chuhuiv is therefore a place in which the relationship between ordinary people and the coercive power of the Russian state has been examined experimentally for more than two centuries. One might reasonably have hoped that the experiment would have produced more encouraging results by now.
The contemporary manifestation of this historical problem is rather more technologically sophisticated. Russian imperial soldiers once required horses, muskets and considerable physical exertion to terrorise their neighbours. Their modern successors can achieve comparable results with cruise missiles, ballistic missiles and explosive drones, all dispatched from considerable distances by individuals who need never encounter the people whose lives they are destroying. Technological progress is a magnificent thing, although its moral achievements have sometimes struggled to keep pace with its engineering accomplishments. Humanity has developed artificial intelligence, reusable rockets and extraordinary medical technologies, but has not yet discovered a reliable means of persuading the Kremlin that other countries are entitled to exist.
The consequences are not theoretical. On 9 June 2026, Russian missile strikes on Chuhuiv killed three people and injured others, damaging buildings in the town centre. On 5 October, another series of Russian attacks injured three people and damaged private homes, a childcare facility, a family medicine clinic and vehicles. These are not descriptions of military victories but inventories of the destruction of civilian life. A family medical practice is not a particularly formidable adversary, although evidently the Russian armed forces are taking no chances.
There is something peculiarly sinister about the use of drones in this kind of warfare. Traditional artillery has always possessed the depressing characteristic of arriving without an invitation, but drones add a new dimension of mechanical surveillance and apparent deliberation. Depending upon their type, they can loiter, observe, select targets and attack with a precision that makes their employment against civilians particularly disturbing. The skies become an environment of permanent uncertainty, in which an innocuous buzzing sound may be indistinguishable, at first, from the announcement of an approaching catastrophe. The natural human instinct to look upwards in wonder is gradually replaced by the instinct to look upwards in apprehension.
The psychological consequences are considerable. One learns to distinguish between different explosions, to estimate distances from the sound of incoming or outgoing fire, and to calculate whether it is worth interrupting one’s dinner to investigate the latest air raid warning. These are skills that would have seemed rather eccentric on a curriculum vitae before February 2022. They are now part of the informal education of millions of Ukrainians, particularly those who live in the eastern and southern regions of the country. The qualification obtained is an advanced degree in the management of existential uncertainty, awarded without ceremony and generally at considerable personal expense.
And yet the most frightening aspect of Chuhuiv is not necessarily the missiles, the drones or even the possibility of sudden death. It is the manner in which human beings can become accustomed to all these things. There is a certain danger in adaptation, because what was once intolerable gradually becomes commonplace. The first explosion may produce terror, the tenth anxiety, and the hundredth merely irritation that one’s afternoon plans have once again been interrupted by the Russian Ministry of Defence. The astonishing flexibility of the human mind, normally considered one of our species’ greatest assets, becomes a mechanism through which the unacceptable is incorporated into everyday expectations.
This is not to suggest that the inhabitants of Chuhuiv are indifferent to their circumstances. Quite the contrary: fear remains a constant companion, although it changes its appearance over time. It may manifest itself as insomnia, impatience, exhaustion, a sudden outburst of anger or an inexplicable reluctance to travel beyond familiar surroundings. Those who have experienced repeated bombardments may develop an extraordinary capacity for functioning under pressure while simultaneously carrying psychological burdens that remain invisible to casual observers. The apparent stoicism of wartime Ukraine should never be mistaken for the absence of suffering, because the two frequently coexist within the same individual.
There is also a particular form of dark humour that emerges in these conditions, and that must be distinguished from frivolity. Ukrainians have become extraordinarily accomplished at making jokes about events that would ordinarily be considered beyond the boundaries of comedy. This is not because the events are amusing but because humour provides a means of asserting psychological control over circumstances that are otherwise overwhelmingly threatening. A person who can laugh at the absurdities of Russian military incompetence, or the grotesque pretensions of Vladimir Putin’s imperial ambitions, has for a moment deprived those circumstances of their capacity to dominate his imagination. Humour becomes a modest but important act of personal resistance.
Nevertheless, Chuhuiv also teaches a lesson about the limitations of humour. No amount of wit will intercept a missile, and sarcasm has yet to prove particularly effective against an artillery barrage. The inhabitants of eastern Ukraine have survived not merely because they possess a certain national talent for irony but because their armed forces have continued to fight, their emergency services have continued to operate, and their civilian institutions have continued to function under conditions that would have brought many supposedly more sophisticated societies to the point of collapse. Behind every humorous observation about the absurdity of war lies an enormous quantity of physical labour, personal sacrifice and disciplined organisation.
Consider the municipal workers who repair electricity supplies after bombardment, the firefighters who enter burning buildings knowing that another strike may follow, and the medical personnel who must treat casualties while their own families remain exposed to danger. Their contributions seldom attract the attention afforded to generals or political leaders, but they are indispensable to the survival of the Ukrainian state. After Russian attacks in October 2025, Chuhuiv’s military administration described local utility workers clearing debris and boarding up broken windows, while humanitarian organisations distributed emergency materials to residents. The language of municipal reconstruction may lack the glamour of battlefield heroism, but it expresses something equally important: the determination that a society shall continue to exist even when another state is trying to dismantle it.
There is a temptation among distant observers to romanticise this resilience. We speak admiringly of Ukrainian courage, publish photographs of elderly women standing defiantly amid the ruins of their homes, and congratulate ourselves upon the indomitable spirit of a nation that refuses to surrender. Such sentiments are understandable, but they risk overlooking a rather inconvenient truth. Courage is not an inexhaustible natural resource, and the repeated demands imposed upon it have a human cost. The inhabitants of Chuhuiv are not characters in an inspiring historical novel, conveniently placed upon the earth to demonstrate the superiority of moral determination over material adversity. They are ordinary people whose lives have been subjected to extraordinary violence, and many of them would undoubtedly prefer to demonstrate their courage by confronting more conventional difficulties, such as the Ukrainian tax authorities.
This distinction matters because the determination required in warfare is not the same as enthusiasm for warfare. The most effective soldiers are not necessarily those who enjoy fighting, just as the most resilient civilians are not necessarily those who have developed an affection for air raid sirens. Real determination consists in continuing to fulfil one’s responsibilities when the attraction of doing so has disappeared. It involves accepting discomfort, uncertainty and sometimes terror without surrendering the practical discipline necessary to accomplish the task at hand. There is nothing especially romantic about such behaviour, and its most characteristic emotions may be fatigue, irritation and an overwhelming desire to go home.
The Ukrainian soldier defending the approaches to Kharkiv does not have the luxury of considering every morning whether the geopolitical situation remains sufficiently inspiring to justify another day’s exertions. The demands of war are rather less accommodating than that. Positions must be maintained, equipment repaired, ammunition supplied and casualties evacuated, irrespective of the psychological condition of the individuals responsible for these activities. The enemy does not suspend operations because one is feeling depressed, and the laws of physics do not recognise compassionate leave. Warfare imposes an extraordinarily harsh discipline precisely because its failures may have consequences from which there is no recovery.
After more than four and a half years of full-scale invasion, this determination has become increasingly difficult to sustain. The initial excitement of national mobilisation has long since given way to the grinding realities of prolonged conflict, with its shortages of manpower, exhaustion of equipment, financial pressures and accumulation of bereavement. Ukraine has demonstrated remarkable powers of resistance, but these powers cannot be treated as an inexhaustible substitute for military assistance, economic stability or responsible political leadership. The continued survival of communities such as Chuhuiv depends upon material resources as much as moral conviction. Courage without ammunition is an admirable quality, but it is also a military predicament.
The situation becomes even more troubling when considered against the international political background. Western governments frequently express profound concern about Russian attacks upon Ukrainian civilians, and this concern is generally accompanied by statements of condemnation so solemn that one might almost imagine they possessed an independent capacity to stop ballistic missiles. Unfortunately international relations have never worked quite like that. Statements of concern are a poor substitute for effective air defence, and the distance between diplomatic sympathy and practical assistance can be measured in the number of Ukrainian buildings reduced to rubble while discussions continue about the appropriate response.
There is a profound moral problem here. Ukrainians are regularly encouraged to remain resolute in defence of their independence, yet the resources necessary to maintain that resolution are often subject to political arguments taking place thousands of kilometres from the battlefield. Decisions about weapons deliveries, financial assistance and sanctions may depend upon electoral calculations, bureaucratic disagreements or the personal eccentricities of foreign political leaders. Meanwhile in Chuhuiv the consequences of delay are experienced not as abstract strategic disadvantages but as shattered windows, demolished homes and funerals. The international community has developed an elaborate vocabulary for describing these events, but its capacity to prevent them remains distressingly imperfect.
One should not conclude from this that negotiations are undesirable or that peace is somehow morally suspect. On the contrary, the whole purpose of Ukraine’s resistance is to create the conditions in which its inhabitants can live without the permanent expectation of violent death. However, peace that merely suspends the fighting while leaving the population exposed to renewed aggression is not necessarily peace in any meaningful sense. The inhabitants of Chuhuiv have more reason than most to appreciate the distinction between a genuine settlement and a temporary administrative arrangement under which Russia is permitted to prepare for another assault.
There is consequently an uncomfortable paradox at the centre of Ukrainian resistance. To create a society in which warfare is no longer necessary, Ukrainians must demonstrate that they are prepared to continue fighting for as long as necessary. This is not an argument for perpetual militarisation, but a recognition that political independence sometimes depends upon the capacity to impose unacceptable costs upon those who would extinguish it. The proposition is hardly novel; it has informed European political history for centuries. What is remarkable is that contemporary Europe, after generations of relative prosperity and peace, has become so reluctant to acknowledge the elementary relationship between political freedom and the means required to defend it.
Chuhuiv therefore represents a challenge not only to Russian imperial ambitions but also to certain comforting assumptions about human progress. We have persuaded ourselves that economic interdependence, technological sophistication and the growth of international institutions would gradually render traditional warfare obsolete. The reality has proved considerably less reassuring. A European city may possess internet connections, modern hospitals, sophisticated banking arrangements and access to the accumulated knowledge of human civilisation, yet still find itself subjected to organised bombardment by a neighbouring state whose leadership has decided that territorial conquest is a more attractive objective than peaceful coexistence.
Perhaps the most disturbing lesson is that civilisation is not a permanent condition but a continuing achievement. It depends upon institutions, habits and expectations that can be destroyed much more rapidly than they can be constructed. A school may require years of investment, planning and education to become an effective institution, while a missile can reduce its premises to ruins in seconds. A family may spend decades accumulating the savings necessary to purchase a modest home, only to see that investment disappear during a single night of bombardment. The disproportion between the labour required to create and the effort required to destroy is one of the central obscenities of modern warfare.
Yet the destruction of physical structures is not the same as the destruction of the society that created them. Buildings can be repaired, electricity restored and schools reopened, provided that the people responsible for these activities retain the will and the means to continue. This is the essential significance of Ukrainian determination, and it explains why the persistence of everyday life in places such as Chuhuiv is a political fact of considerable importance. Every functioning shop, every repaired roof and every child receiving an education represents a refusal to accept the proposition that violence confers political legitimacy.
There is something almost comically offensive to the imperial imagination about this persistence. Moscow may announce ambitious strategic objectives, deploy elaborate military formations and issue increasingly apocalyptic threats, only to discover that a Ukrainian pensioner remains determined to grow tomatoes in her garden and has no intention of seeking the Kremlin’s permission. The absurdity is not that such resistance is insignificant, but that an authoritarian system possessing an enormous apparatus of coercion should find itself frustrated by the collective insistence of ordinary individuals upon continuing their ordinary lives. The Russian state would presumably prefer its intended victims to behave with greater appreciation of its historical grandeur.
And so we return to the original question: what is frightening about Chuhuiv? Certainly the prospect of being killed by a missile is frightening, as is the possibility of losing one’s home, livelihood or family in circumstances over which one has virtually no control. But there is another, more profound form of fear associated with places of this kind. It arises from the recognition that survival may depend upon qualities of endurance and determination that most human beings have never been required to test, and that the comforts of civilisation cannot be taken for granted even in the twenty-first century.
Chuhuiv is frightening because it strips away the illusions upon which comfortable societies depend. It demonstrates that international law cannot enforce itself, that political freedom requires material protection, and that human resilience, however remarkable, must eventually be supported by practical resources. It reminds us that the distinction between peace and war is not maintained by goodwill alone, and that the preservation of ordinary life may require extraordinary acts of collective resistance. These are truths that modern Europeans would generally prefer to contemplate at a safe distance, ideally accompanied by an agreeable glass of wine.
Above all, Chuhuiv is frightening because its inhabitants have no choice but to confront these truths every day. They cannot retire into philosophical abstraction, postpone their obligations until the international situation improves, or decline to participate in history because its present direction seems excessively unpleasant. They must continue working, caring for one another, rebuilding what has been destroyed and supporting those who defend them, even when the apparent rewards for doing so are pitifully inadequate.
The determination required is not the absence of fear but the willingness to act in spite of it, repeatedly and without any guarantee that tomorrow will be better than today. It is a kind of stubbornness that rarely attracts admiration until circumstances become sufficiently desperate to reveal its true importance. The people who exhibit it may be exhausted, irritable, argumentative and thoroughly sick of being described as heroic, but they continue because the alternative is to permit their country’s future to be determined by those who are trying to destroy it.
And that, ultimately, is the most frightening thing about Chuhuiv. It teaches us that there are moments in human history when all the refinements of civilisation, all the achievements of philosophy and all the reassurances of diplomatic language are reduced to one brutally simple proposition: somebody has to stand their ground. There are times when standing one’s ground is uncomfortable, inconvenient, dangerous and profoundly unfair, but none of these objections alters the necessity of doing so.
For the inhabitants of Chuhuiv, this is not an inspiring conclusion to a philosophical essay. It is the reality with which they must wake up tomorrow morning, assuming they have been permitted a reasonable night’s sleep. They will get up, make their coffee, inspect whatever fresh damage the Russians have inflicted, and carry on with their lives as best they can.
The Kremlin might reasonably regard such obstinacy as deeply discouraging. The rest of us should regard it as one of the reasons why Ukraine continues to exist.
