In Mykolaiv’s bunkers, civilians are defiant, but fear for their city
Ukrainian Svitlana Klimenko, whose family has lived in the same house here for seven generations, leads down a narrow courtyard trail and past a tiny, snow-covered urban garden.
“This is the secret path,” she says.
She steps through a gap in the fence and into the nondescript entryway of an aged apartment block. Unlocking a heavy steel door, and wielding her flashlight like it’s her only weapon, she descends dark stairs deep underground, to yet another steel door.
Inside is a Soviet-era bunker, a relic of the last world war, and recently unsealed for the first time in 70 years.
Soon after Russian forces invaded Ukraine in late February, fearful neighbors quickly resurrected the bunker’s electrical, ventilation, and water systems and brought
