Western Ukraine: Lviv prepares for war

The war is raging in many parts of Ukraine. It’s still quiet in the west. However, the people of Lviv are preparing for attacks by the Russian army – and are trying to secure the buildings.

Adonis was the god of beauty and vegetation in ancient times. In Lviv, western Ukraine, the Austrian sculptor Hartmann Witwer dedicated a statue to him almost exactly 200 years ago, when Lviv was still called Lemberg.

At the moment there is nothing to see of the beauty of the modeled god, the statue is wrapped in plastic sheeting. Scaffolders screw heavy steel pipes around it, later the men will attach wooden panels to it: Adonis will disappear into a huge box, so to speak, and fill it with sand. That is a certain security of the statue, says one of the scaffolders. And he adds: In case the Russian Air Force should bomb Lviv.

People prepare to attack

Should Russian President Vladimir Putin want to take over the whole of Ukraine, sooner or later he will also have to attack Lviv. Because the city is the center in the west of the country.

The people are preparing for attacks – including attacks on the buildings in Lviv: on old churches they cover the church windows with wooden panels so that pressure waves from detonations don’t shatter the colored glass. Business owners try something similar with shop windows: They mask the panes. In the outskirts of the city, street checks take place again and again, during which the city administration wants to discover possible saboteurs.

Basements are being remodeled

Ivan Luzenko, head of the German Ursuline school in Lviv, is also preparing for war. Lutsenko, a burly man in his fifties, leads us into the basement of the old building that used to be a monastery.

“That’s why we have wide and long cellars,” explains Lutsenko. “It wasn’t really a protective cellar, but we rebuilt it. We have some biscuits, mugs, water here. There are medicines there too, and so on.”

Eight days in the basement

Since the beginning of the war there have been no classes in Ukraine – including at the Ursuline School. Next week it should be resumed – online. The students and teachers have plenty of experience with this – because of the corona pandemic, says headmaster Luzenko. In any case, the lessons cannot take place in the classrooms because refugees have found accommodation in the rooms.

One of them is Svetlana, also a German teacher, who was able to make her way to Lviv from the hard-fought Kharkiv with her two children. “My children sat in the basement for eight days, of course we were afraid. And then we decided to go here to Western Ukraine. And that took a very long time. Four days. I’m afraid, of course I’m afraid. Nobody expected that something like this can happen in a European country in the 21st century.”

Being prepared for everything possible – even the unexpected – is also a preparation for war.

Energy bars for the front

The 20 to 30 women who meet daily in the seminary of the Holy Spirit to cook are also prepared. Helena, a short, brown pageboy who is standing at one of the mixers, tells what’s in the mass that’s coming together in big bowls. Dried fruit, nuts and honey are in it. Later, Helena and the other women knead the mass and cut it into pieces. In the end, energy bars come out.

The women produce up to 150 kilos of this fuel, wrap the bars in wax paper and pack them in boxes. In the end, volunteers transport them to the front in their cars – to cities like Kharkiv, Mariupol or Kyiv. And, of course, say Helena and the others, they would continue with that if the war should reach their city.