3-6-2018 Adam Osmayev--
his hand on the wheel, his gaze out the window--was trying hard to make sense of where he was headed. As he nosed his car down a quiet street on the industrial outskirts of Kiev he noted the tableau of blight: grim warehouses, hulking Soviet-era apartments. In recent weeks he'd begun adjusting to life in the city, to life far from the battlefield. But he still carried a soldier's sense of unease--something out here felt strange. Of course, in Kiev nothing ever feels quite right.
In the backseat his wife,
Up front sat Alex Werner, a French journalist for Le Monde, the Parisian daily, providing directions and sounding reassuring. Don't worry, he told the couple, he knew the way. In fact, he told them, they were running a bit early. And so Werner asked Adam to pull the car over. They could wait for a bit, Werner explained, as the car rolled to a stop on a patch of grass beside a bus stop.
Usually it was Adam who took charge, Adam who made the plans and plotted the routes. As a commander in the Ukrainian army he'd spent the past couple of years fighting pro-Russian troops in the east. His wife, Amina, had too, becoming famous as a sniper in a guerrilla outfit. But they were putting the war behind them now. They'd moved to Kiev and were starting over, as best they could....
Not that the city offered any guarantees of safety. ...On an ordinary morning in the crowded center of town
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