High rise office buildings, high rise apartment buildings, 5million people waiting for the bus, buying at McDonalds, sitting in coworking spaces, it's exactly like in Paris or London, just with rockets and drone swarms crushing into this densely populated city. The supermarkets have most stuff, the subway works, water, electricty and heating works surprisingsly well, but that's because Kyiv is well defended against airstrikes now, a privilege most eastern cities dont have.
Landline internet and mobile signal has outages (due to russian attacks) but works in general much better than in my origin country Germany. Contactless payment and wifi is very common and works very well in urban areas, even during attacks. All ukrainian ISPs have an agreement now that they try to keep the system up and open for everybody, regardless of your provider.
Lots of native ukrainians are so "done" with it that they jsut sleep through the night / attacks, not giving a f* anymore. Also masses of children everywhere. Working from cafes is wild too, as lots of school children usually stay there during the raids. Lots of laptop workers 60+ too, surprisingly (it's more a younger people thing in my german culture).
Tricks: Don't hope, don't pray, just be well prepared, and hardcore realistic. Have a stack of everything, fill everything you have with clean water, have energy for days and keep your devices loaded. Have a stash of warm clothes, multiple shoes, wet toilet paper, food that doesnt need a fridge or fire and all that "survival" stuff. Assume the worst case, and prepare for this. Dont take risks, it's a warzone, even simple things like losing your keys can be a desaster. Have a backout plan (car) in case things go very bad. Connect with everybody, we are all in this together. Dont tell customers / clients you are in Ukraine, it will just complicate things. Have a laptop of course, to be able to work from everywhere, as you might leave you apartment often due to air raids. Have a one-click hotspot on your phone to work with the laptop.
How close is the war? You can hear explosions all the time, it's a wild mix of air defense working, air defense hitting incoming stuff, or missiles / drones hitting. In 2 occasions, apartment blocks in the 500m radius were hit heavily, one time i was even filming it (sent clip to BBC, they never published afaik). Didnt see any dead people, but lots of smoke. At night i saw a wild thing, a swarm of drones flying into electric wires or so. Sirens all the time. One time a hypersonic missile was shot down or hit something over/in my disctrict, was the loudest thing i ever heard, so fast there was not even air alarm before.
Disclaimer: I am currently not in Ukraine anymore
And had my share of sitting in a basement listening terrorists rockets blowing up above and falling in neighboring areas. The best tech working experience of my life so far.
Even though many israelis get used to the permanent state of war - it is not for free.
Average stress level is very high, you can see it and feel it everywhere. Depression, anxiety and other symptoms are over the roof.
Anyway,
Tip #2: try living in big cities (lower street crime rates than in safest US states) farther from territories.
Tip #1: learn from locals about all these and other issues.