For a second terrifying night in a row, a massive number of Russian missiles and drones came crashing down on Ukrainian cities and villages, killing at least 12 and injuring more than 60 - many as they slept in their beds.
Air raid sirens began howling across the capital after dark, between 10:00 and 11:00 PM, followed by the window-shaking explosions of ballistic missiles later in the dead of night.
Between One and Two O'clock in the morning, the skyline was lit up with criss-crossing search lights, some of which strangely illuminated the smoke from burning buildings in the distance.
The pre-dawn silence broke in sporadic spells - anti-aircraft machine-gun fire, the boom of rockets and then, perhaps most ominously, the whir of nearby drones, which speed up into a frenzy just before they crash and explode.
Outside, on the street below could be heard the ocassional, anxious voices and footsteps of people making their way to the local bomb shelter.
Unlike in earlier such attacks, those of Friday and Saturday night were longer, louder, more intense. It seemed at one point as if they would never end.
Of the 12 killed during Saturday night's attack, three were children, aged eight, 12 and 17 - all from the same family, their parents now lying injured in hospital.
So far no fatalties have been reported in the capital.
In all, the Russians launched a record breaking 69 missiles and almost 300 hundred drones, hitting 22 locations across 13 of the nation's regions.
Many of these were shot down by Ukrainian air defense units using missile systems most here fear will be soon be cut off by Donald Trump, ever ready to justify his counterpart in the Kremlin.
"America's silence will only encourage Putin," Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a statement on Sunday morning.
Just the night before, on Friday,13 were killed and 56 injured from a similar massive missile and drone assault leaving fires and mangled buildings in its wake.
Rather than winding down the violence, Putin seems to be stepping it up. Unable to make significant progress against the Ukrainian army, the Russian leader appears intent on breaking the will of the Ukrainian people.
"I don't know how much more of this I can take," an elderly woman who works at a play center where I take my daughter told me on Saturday.
Forced to leave her home in the east when Russia stepped up it's invasion in February 2022, she now struggles to make ends meet as a refugee in Kyiv.
"The explosions are so loud, so scary I cannot sleep, and I have a heart condition," she laments.
Sleeplessness and the terror of being incinerated as one sleeps hit a wider section of the population than any missile or drone.
The middle-aged women who work at the corner shop in my neighborhood look haggard on Sunday morning. The long hours and low wages are difficult enough, without being awaken nearly every night by air attacks.
"I go to sleep just fine, but wake up regularly at 02:00 AM from the explosions," one told me.
Perhaps ironically, the weekend has also seen the return of a thousand prisoners of war, on both sides, in what was hoped would be a gesture towards some not so distant peace.
Large street protests calling for their return have become a regular feature in the capital.
Perhaps cynically, Sunday's attack coincided with Kyiv Day, when citizens celebrate the founding of their ancient city and culture over a thousand years ago - a city that Putin has unilaterally claimed for Russia, and a culture that he denies exists.
For those outside Ukraine, the war seems a colorless landscape of still life destruction, with images of sullen faces set against broken, burnt out buildings.
But that's after all the action of the night before.
For those of us who live here, be it in eastern Kharkiv, the northern border-town of Sumy, along the front line in Donetsk, in Zaporizhzhe Kherson, or the capital Kyiv, the war is anything but static, colorless and depressing, but rather explosive, unpredictable and terrifying - especially at night.
