"The city lives": With Russian forces gone, Kyiv starts to revive

And people like Mr. Rybytva — who also works for the Free Belarus Center, a group dedicated to helping people flee the brutal Lukashenko government in Belarus — are returning to their homes.

“The feelings are strange,” he wrote in a series of text messages. “It’s hard to explain. It’s not just a house. It is a symbol. And of course, I really wanted to hug my family and friends.”

In Kyiv this week, instead of seeking shelter in the subway, people are now riding it; it is running on all lines, though not all of the stops are open. About 150 buses and 30 trams are working again. The City Council reported that more than 500 businesses had reopened within the last week. The Kyiv school district has started online instruction for students, including those in western Ukraine and locations elsewhere in Europe.

There are still checkpoints and barricades on some streets, and sandbags are part of the city’s architecture. But there are also large lines of cars now forming on highways into the city, a reversal from the first days of the war when tens of thousands fled and traffic jams clogged the roads out.