More drones, fewer parks. Ukrainians are pushing for a spending shift as the war continues.

Braving rain and snow, hundreds of Ukrainians gathered outside the Kiev city council last week with signs reading: “I don’t want a park” and “Why do I need paving stones?” They sang, jumped and clapped as they called for an end to road repairs and a freeze on construction of a new subway depot.

Protesting the renovation of your city may seem highly unusual, especially in a country whose president was elected four years ago on a promise to repair roads. But protesters said funding is needed today for a more pressing goal: the war effort.

“This money should be spent on buying weapons,” said Yevheniia Klyshal, a 29-year-old nutritionist who waved a sign that read: “New roads will not win this war.”

The protests, which can also be seen in other major Ukrainian cities such as Odessa and Lviv, reflect a growing sentiment: as the The war against Russia continues and Ukraine has run out of weapons and ammunitionthe whole country must be put on a war footing.

“The war will last a long time,” said Iryna Ignatovych, founder of Money for the AFU – an acronym for Armed Forces of Ukraine – a civilian group behind the protests in Kiev. “Russia is a very big country with many resources. Ukraine is not that big, so in order to win we have to focus all our efforts on helping our military. The back must support the front.”

“It is a question of the survival of the nation,” Ms. Ignatovych said.

The protests began in Odessa in late August, when several dozen Ukrainians demanded that money intended for repairs to a courthouse be spent on the military instead. The initiative struck a chord with many citizens and the movement quickly spread to other cities. In Kiev, demonstrators have been gathering under the Soviet-style building of the local city government every Saturday since mid-September to push for changes in the city’s government spending.

Much of their anger is directed at the Kyiv city budget for 2024, which includes $1 million to rebuild an intersection and $670,000 to renovate a park that opened just five years ago. “It’s just luxury,” Ms. Ignatovych said.

Some Kiev city council members have suggested that it was not the capital’s main role to finance the war effort and that significant amounts have already been allocated to financing army brigades. Still, the capital’s military budget for 2024 – about $27 million, remains according to official figures – is just a fraction of this year’s, which has outraged protesters.

“I want the budget to be used for the defense of our country, not to repave sidewalks or build roads that already look normal,” said Tetiana Nagumuk, who stood among demonstrators last week, holding a Ukrainian flag draped around her shoulders.

Around her, hundreds of people in their 20s and 30s held up signs highlighting what they saw as absurd wartime investments.

“You are building roads for the occupiers,” said one. Another note had a slogan scribbled on it referring to the air raid warnings that routinely roil the capital. It said: “Kiev in 2024 will be like: Attention! Missile danger. Go immediately to the renovated park”, with the word “shelter” crossed out.

Under pressure, Kiev Mayor Vitali Klitschko has announced last week that the city council would earmark another 600 million Ukrainian hryvnias, about $16 million, for the military in this year’s budget.

That did not quell the anger of the demonstrators.

“Six hundred million is not enough!” they sang last Saturday, on a bitterly cold morning, as passing motorists honked in support. The demonstrators demanded that more money be spent on purchasing armored vehicles, building bomb shelters and funding aid programs to help wounded soldiers returning from the front.

“It’s okay to make our city comfortable and beautiful, but I don’t think that’s our main need right now,” said Liena Kyrylovska, 24. Like most protesters, she also believed that financing urban development would lead to kind corruption schemes that have long plagued Ukraine.

Many in Ukraine had hoped for a quick victory after the country’s armed forces successfully repelled invading Russian forces and regained large swathes of territory last year.

But Ukraine’s stalled summer counteroffensive has dashed those hopes and “a majority of people now understand that we are not on the path to victory,” said Petro Burkovsky, head of the Democratic Initiatives Foundation, a Ukrainian think tank.

Mr. Burkovsky said the popularity of the protests – in a country where public expressions of criticism of the government have largely disappeared during the war – shows that Ukrainians are keen to ensure that what they see as wasteful spending does not derail the war effort.

For many, this means shattering the relative sense of normalcy that has settled in cities far from the front lines.

“Sometimes everything seems as if we live in a country without war,” said Yevgen Dykyy, a former Ukrainian battalion commander. told the magazine Ukrainsky Tyzhden last month. He said he was shocked to see “hundreds of flower beds, sidewalks, pedestrian bridges and fountains,” paid for by taxpayers and spread across Kiev.

“Have we won the war yet?” Mr. Dykyy asked. “Today, all money used for building fountains, decorations and laying tiles should go directly to the National Defense Fund.”

Myroslav Havryshchuk, one of the organizers of the protests in Kiev, said putting the country on a war footing has become all the more urgent in light of the West’s declining support for Ukraine’s war effort. “We have to think strategically and start counting on ourselves,” he said.

Perhaps the protesters’ greatest fear is a return to a situation similar to that of a few years ago, when a frozen conflict between Ukrainian forces and Moscow’s allies in eastern Ukraine gradually escaped public attention, leaving the country was not prepared for a large-scale invasion. that was obvious.

“I really hope this won’t happen,” said Markiian Zadumluvyi, a photographer at a recent protest.

A few meters away, a protester held up a sign that read: “I don’t want a park where I can be killed by the Russians.”

Daria Mitiuk reporting contributed.