The little things that gild life are put on pause.
As so often happens in times of crisis.
In times of debt, survival debt.
The music has stopped.
The literature as well.
Nothing that can function as a refuge from all the awful is given space for now.
As if bodies and their need for the sweetness of life have been shut down and go on autopilot in favor of survival and strategy.
Wrong decisions risk lives
The Russian invasion started just over four weeks ago and everyday life is something completely different now.
On the surface, the western city and Ukraine's cultural capital, Lviv, may seem relatively normal.
It is a bizarre paradox that the spring sun shines warm and the blue sky expands stately.
But the new reality is fraught with aircraft alarms, military presence, roadblocks and people fleeing their homes.
People who otherwise would not be here are now there.
Everything in the city is a potential target for war rockets and robots.
No exteriors may be filmed, no military activities and strategies may be shared.
It is serious and any wrong decision risks killing lives.
"We do not want to fight"
In Lviv, people are being trained for the war.
From one day they made a music podcast, now they are waiting to be called to the front.
Young people who have never held a weapon before now know how to shoot an enemy.
Their lives went from everyday life to the cruel reality of war in one night.
Maria, who has gone from a life in the advertising and modeling industry, says that they do not train because they want to fight, but because they want to be so strong that Ukraine will never be attacked again.
At the same time, civilian operations are underway throughout Lviv.
Everyone contributes in the ways they can.
Patching up on war injuries is an equally important, albeit more important, part of war management.
"A saved life is as valuable as a killed enemy," says a 30-year-old architect after completing a four-hour course on emergency care.
Courses that are now given for free to everyone.
The war is creeping ever closer
SVT's photographer Linda Hörnqvist and I have during the time we were in Ukraine met people who changed their whole lives.
Decisions that they made in the same second it was discovered to them that the invasion is not an exercise but for real.
The war continues to creep ever closer and we left the country to the sound of yet another plane alarm and to the smoke from an attack in the so-called "safe side" of Ukraine.
More about the city and the people who are preparing for war in SVT's new documentary Slava Ukraini - courage, resistance and the motherland on SVT Play.