In Kyiv, hackers sent fake alerts about a nuclear apocalypse. We hardly noticed | Diana Berg

As Europe erupts in furious protests, we prep for a cold, dark winter. Rage and fear require energy we simply don’t haveExplosions woke me at 3am the other night. Sitting on the bathroom floor behind two load-bearing walls, scrolling through Telegram to see where Russian missiles were heading, I noticed the light was on. Power had returned while we slept. On pure autopilot, I stood up, stuffed laundry into the washing machine, set a quick cycle hoping it would finish spinning before the next blackout, and sat back down to wait out the attack.In our fifth year of full-scale war, air raid apps have introduced a new bureaucratic absurdity: threats are colour-coded into yellow for drones and red for missiles, as if a “yellow” drone alert were merely a light autumn drizzle. This one was red. But honestly, ballistic missiles are almost convenient. Unlike the Russian drones that buzz monotonously for an hour and under which we now simply roll over and keep sleeping, hoping for the best, ballistic missiles take just minutes to arrive. A five-minute break on the bathroom floor barely interrupts your sleep, or your laundry.Diana Berg is a Ukrainian artist, writer and cultural manager from Mariupol, and the founder of Platform TU, an independent cultural initiative now operating in exile after Russia’s full-scale invasion Continue reading...