The New Statesman.

Hello, I'm Tom Gatti, and you're listening to Culture from The New Statesman, a weekly podcast

exploring the cultural moments that define our world. Last Monday marked the third

anniversary of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Reflecting on this, the award-winning Ukrainian author Andrei Kerkow has written the diary

for this week's New Statesman magazine. He writes, In the evenings I play Sudoku.

Lately I've been losing, probably because I choose a level that is too difficult for me.

But playing at a lower level feels like cheating and winning brings no joy.

There is nothing easy in Ukrainian life today.

We must remain realistic.

He joins me now down the line from Kyiv.

Andrei, thank you so much for joining us.

Yeah, very welcome. Hello.

I wanted to start by simply asking what life is like in Keeve for you now.

Three years into the war, how does the background of the conflict fit into the

normality of daily life for you? Well, it's not a normal life anymore already for three years.

People adapted to this kind of life with permanent danger.

Kiev is different because we have half a million of displaced persons from other regions

who live now in Kiev and half a million of Kievites went as refugees

either abroad or to the western regions of Ukraine.

In Kiev, as well as in other big cities, people don't sleep because every night we have several air raid alerts.

And then every time you have to go into internet and check for the reasons of the alerts.

...