INTERNATIONAL: From Monday to Friday, Aleksandr works as an IT programmer and Konstantin Semchuk freelances in online advertising. On Saturday ,January 29, the two met others in an abandoned construction site on the outskirts of Kyiv to train as Ukrainian army reservists, ready to be called up in the event of any war breaking out with neighbouring Russia.

Nervous over the threat of some 120,000 Russian troops massed near the border with Ukraine, Kyiv launched a new Territorial Defence force this year, which it wants to build up into a corps of up to 130,000 people.

Reservists like Aleksandr and Semchuk could be tasked with protecting civilian sites in Kyiv amid any conflict.

"I am worried," said Semchuk, the 43-year-old freelancer who has said he had so far avoided any contact with the military after serving a year in the eastern Donbass region in 2014 to 2015 during Ukraine's general mobilisation. "But now the situation is such that it's needed."

While IT programmer Aleksandr took part in the 2013 to 2014 'Maidan' mass pro-democracy protests in Kyiv, he has said he did not feel ready to fight when Moscow reacted to the overthrow of Ukraine's pro-Russian president by annexing Crimea.

"Now I'm in my mid-30s and it's time for me to join," he said, saying it was better to do so before it was "too late"

Saturday's training has brought together about 70 locals, some in full infantry gear with hunting rifles and combat experience from Russia's annexation of Crimea in 2014 and conflict with separatist rebels fighting government troops in eastern Ukraine.

Others in sneakers and casual sportswear were handed mock wooden rifles.

The motley crew of reservists have shared a feeling that Ukraine, formerly a Soviet republic, wanted to decide its own fate independently of its old overlord Moscow.

Konstantin has said he wanted to live in a peaceful, flourishing country, "like Poland, like the Czech Republic, like Germany, like all European countries."

Although the United States has warned that a military intervention is likely and imminent, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has said that too much "panic" is hurting the economy of 41 million people.

While Moscow insists it does not want a war, it has also dismissed calls to withdraw its troops, saying it can deploy them as it sees fit on its own territory.

It has cited the Western response as evidence that it is the target, not the instigator, of aggression.