Kyiv Right Now: What You Should Know
Kyiv is not a place you can casually go this year. Russia’s full-scale invasion, under way since 24 February 2022, is still ongoing, and the UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office advises against all travel to Kyiv, a line shared by the US State Department’s own highest-tier “Do Not Travel” guidance. Martial law and a nightly curfew are both in force, air-raid alerts sound regularly, and missile and drone strikes have hit the city repeatedly since 2022. Ukraine’s airspace has been closed to commercial flights since the invasion began, so there is no route in by plane, ordinary travel insurance does not cover a trip taken against that advice, and consular help on the ground is limited. Check the live gov.uk FCDO Ukraine advice before you read another word of this, because that page updates and this one will not.
Can you go to Kyiv right now?
No. The advisory covers Kyiv directly, not just the contested east, and it exists because of the strike and air-raid risk described above, not front-line proximity. Boryspil (KBP) and Zhuliany (IEV) have run no scheduled, charter, or cargo flights since 24 February 2022, so entry means flying commercially to Poland and continuing by a long overland train, a route built for journalists, aid workers, and officials rather than visitors. Going anyway means traveling with insurance that will very likely not pay out and consular support that the British Embassy in Kyiv has said plainly it cannot provide in person.
What can you still learn about the city?
Kyiv holds an 11th-century UNESCO cathedral and monastery complex, a central square with real modern political weight, and a metro system that now doubles as an air-raid shelter. Saint Sophia’s Cathedral and the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra were jointly inscribed by UNESCO in 1990 and have sat on the List of World Heritage in Danger since September 2023 because of the war. Maidan Nezalezhnosti was the site of the 2004 Orange Revolution and the 2013-2014 Revolution of Dignity, and it has carried a wartime memorial role since 2022. St Michael’s Golden-Domed Monastery, demolished by Soviet authorities in the 1930s and rebuilt after independence, and the Golden Gate, a 1982 Soviet-era reconstruction, both sit near Andriyivskyi Descent as it winds down to Podil, the old riverside district. The Motherland Monument was renamed “Mother Ukraine” on 1 August 2023, when its Soviet hammer-and-sickle shield was replaced with the Ukrainian trident. None of this is a reason to book a trip today. It is what will still be standing when a safe visit becomes possible.
Chornobyl is not part of that future, either, at least not yet: guided tours into the Exclusion Zone were a real, bookable product before 2022, but zone access has been suspended since 11 April 2022 and remains closed to tourists. Treat any listing that still offers a Chornobyl day trip as wrong.
Is any of this changing?
Not on a schedule anyone can promise. Martial law has been extended repeatedly since it was declared in February 2022, and curfew hours shift by region and over time rather than settling into a fixed rule, so check the live advisory rather than trusting a number written down today. The hryvnia (UAH, ₴) remains Ukraine’s currency, and Kyiv still uses the Ukrainian spelling, not the Russian-derived “Kiev,” in every current source worth reading. What changes will be reported by the FCDO and by Ukraine’s own channels, Visit Ukraine and United24 , before it shows up in a travel guide.
For the fuller picture, including how you would actually get there and what a peacetime week might have cost, see Kyiv Travel Guide 2026: Know Before You Go . When it is safe to plan again, our 3-day and 7-day itineraries sketch out what that trip could look like. None of it is a suggestion to go now. Read the UNESCO record for Ukraine’s World Heritage properties instead, and check back on the advisory before you check flight prices.