Ukraine's cultural capital no longer distant from the war

Lviv: Until the missiles struck within walking distance of the cathedrals and cafes downtown, Ukraine's cultural capital was a city that could feel distant from the war. The early panic had eased, and the growing response to morning air raid sirens was not to head downstairs but roll over in bed.

But Friday's Russian airstrikes at dawn in Lviv, just outside the international airport, made nearby buildings vibrate and shook any sense of comfort as thick black smoke billowed.

Still, the hours after the airstrikes were absent of the scenes in other Ukrainian cities that have horrified the world: shattered buildings and people fleeing under fire. Lviv was already returning to its centuries-old role as an ever-adapting crossroads.

In the morning it was scary, but we have to go on, said Maria Parkhuts, a local restaurant worker. People are arriving with almost nothing, and from where it's worse.

The city has been a refuge since the war began nearly a month ago, the last outpost before Poland and host to hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians streaming

through or staying on. From the other direction come aid and foreign fighters.

Midstream is a city that, on the surface, carries on amid world heritage churches and coffee kiosks. Food delivery cyclists with backpacks of global brands wobble down the cobblestones. Yellow trams ding through narrow streets lined with the history of one occupation after another, from the Cossacks to the Swedes

to the Germans and the Soviet Union.

The threat of another occupation by Russia, after so long a fight to break from its influence, and so close to the rest of Europe, is where the new Lviv emerges now.

It's war, said Maxim Tristan, a 28-year-old soldier, of Friday's attack. It only makes us more motivated to fight.

On a street corner, young men line up outside a weapons shop, passing around a gun sight. Anything's available if you have cash, one man said, prompting grins from the others. On the same block is a range for target practice, with the face of Russian President Vladimir Putin in the bull's-eye. Elsewhere in the city, military veterans train civilians how to shoot.