It wasn’t until 7am that Masha Gorenkova realized something serious was up. The first explosion had woken her at 4:30am, and several more had occurred in the interim; but like most of the neighbors in her Kyiv apartment block, she hadn’t twigged. Given the tone of inevitability from many quarters in the build up to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, the revelation that Ukrainians were taken by surprise seems counterintuitive. Yet incredulity was widespread among those on the ground and relatives further afield. Few thought this would happen. “I was shocked,” Gorenkova, a 25-year-old teacher, tells the Taipei