Inside Kyiv on the night of Ukraine’s improbable World Cup qualifier win

KYIV, Ukraine — On the ninth floor of an apartment building near the local zoo, a group of friends gathered to watch a soccer game. Outside the sun set on the first day of summer in the capital city. They all checked the time. A little more than an hour remained before Ukraine kicked off against Scotland in Glasgow. The host, Ivan, laid out a spread for his friends. He iced down beer and opened takeaway fried cheese platters, chicken wings, salami and a few bottles of Wild Turkey. Ukraine needed a win tonight, and another in four days versus Wales, to qualify for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, but nobody seemed particularly nervous.

“During war,” Ivan said, “you don’t really stress about sports.”

The guy in an easy chair down at the end of the coffee table, sipping on a local craft beer, is a soldier home on leave from the front lines in the east. His name is Volodya and before the war he worked as an IT guy. Just before the game got underway, there were moments when he seemed to disappear, his body here in his hometown but his mind back with his brothers in arms. He scrolled through his phone and looked at photos and videos from the combat. He handed over his phone to show me two dead Russian soldiers. He called his friends back at the front line. They are so close to Russia they can and do take potshots at the enemy border guards. His buddies in the trenches crowded around the phone to talk to him.

“Are you guys watching football?” he asked.

“Yes!” they said.

The soldiers cracked jokes, laughing, waiting on the game. So did the guys in the apartment. One draped a Ukrainian flag over his daughter’s pink and white dollhouse. Volodya ate a piece of beef jerky and told stories about the American military advisers who trained him. Someone opened a Corona. Two guys stepped onto the terrace to look out at the city and smoke.

Air raid sirens sounded.

Everyone in the apartment turned toward the balcony to listen to the noise — long, loud wails, stacking on top of…