From Valletta to Kyiv: How Malta Feels the Shockwaves of Russia’s Largest Air Assault on Ukraine

Valletta, 11 July – The amber glow of a Mediterranean sunset over the Grand Harbour last night felt almost surreal against the backdrop of news that Russia had unleashed its largest air assault of the war on Kyiv, striking the very seat of Ukraine’s government. In cafés along Strait Street, where tourists usually clink Cisk and debate which band will headline next month’s Earth Garden, conversation turned instead to cruise-missile trajectories and air-raid sirens 2,000 kilometres away.

Malta may sit at Europe’s southern edge, but the blast waves from Ukraine reached our islands instantly—digitally, economically, and emotionally. Within minutes of the first reports, Prime Minister Robert Abela tweeted condemnation in Maltese, English and Ukrainian, echoing the solidarity he first voiced aboard the navy-chartered vessel that ferried 284 Ukrainian evacuees to Malta in March 2022. That humanitarian corridor, run jointly with the Archdiocese’s Caritas Malta, has since evolved into a permanent integration programme: 1,047 Ukrainians now call Malta home, enrolled in English classes at the Maria Regina College and working in St Julian’s iGaming hubs. Last night, many gathered at the Ukrainian-Maltese Association’s community centre in Msida, eyes fixed on a flickering livestream from Kyiv’s Maidan.

“Every boom on the screen is a reminder of what my grandmother hears in Kharkiv,” said 26-year-old Alina Shevchenko, now a UX designer at a Sliema start-up. She held a candle alongside Maltese volunteers who sang the Ukrainian national anthem, followed—without missing a beat—by L-Innu Malti. The mash-up was spontaneous, yet it captured the cultural braid that has tightened since the invasion: Maltese festa fireworks have been replaced by blue-and-yellow illuminations on the Triton Fountain; last month’s Malta International Arts Festival opened with a Kyiv Symphony Orchestra chamber ensemble performing in the Auberge d’Italie’s baroque courtyard.

Economically, the ripple effects are tangible. Malta’s only grain-storage silos, at the Malta Freeport, have been running at 120 % capacity since the Black Sea corridor wobbled. “We’re stockpiling Ukrainian wheat to buffer global shortages,” explained Freeport CEO Alex Montebello. “Every Russian missile on Odessa’s port pushes freight prices up, and that feeds directly into Maltese bread.” The price of ftira tal-ħobż has already risen 15 cent in two weeks; bakers in Qormi warn another hike is likely.

Meanwhile, the island’s booming crypto sector—licensed under Malta’s 2018 Virtual Financial Assets Act—faces fresh scrutiny. EU sanctions have forced Russian blockchain firms to relocate, but intelligence briefings shared with Malta’s Financial Intelligence Analysis Unit suggest some are attempting to re-register here under Maltese flags of convenience. “We’re walking a tightrope,” one senior official told Hot Malta on condition of anonymity. “We want legitimate tech investment, not oligarch laundry.”

Yet the human story dominates. At the Junior College in Msida, 18-year-old Ukrainian twins Yana and Yeva Kovalchuk—who fled Mariupol last spring—sat their MATSEC advanced-level exams last month and scored top marks. Their success was toasted with traditional Maltese imqaret served alongside Ukrainian syrnyky, a sweet cross-cultural moment that went viral on TikTok. Education Minister Clifton Grima announced yesterday that 50 additional scholarships will be ring-fenced for Ukrainian students “because education is the antidote to bombs.”

Back on Strait Street, the band eventually struck up, but the set-list had changed. Instead of Euro-pop covers, the Valletta indie group Beangrowers segued from “Blue Monday” into a haunting rendition of “Oi u luzi chervona kalyna,” the Ukrainian resistance anthem. Patrons raised glasses of Kinnie-and-vodka—half Maltese, half Ukrainian—while the Ukrainian flag fluttered beside the Maltese cross on the balcony above.

As the night deepened, Archbishop Charles Scicluna led a multilingual prayer for peace on the steps of St John’s Co-Cathedral, the baroque façade glowing under floodlights. “Malta knows what it is to be a small island at the crossroads of empires,” he told the crowd, referencing the Great Siege of 1565. “Tonight we stand with Kyiv as steadfastly as our forebears stood against tyranny.”

The Mediterranean may seem like a world away from the Dnipro, but in Malta the war is no distant echo—it is a neighbour knocking at our door, asking to be sheltered, fed, and remembered. And Malta, true to its age-old identity as a bridge between continents, is answering with open arms, open hearts, and, for now, open Wi-Fi so that every Ukrainian on the island can call home and say, “Għadna hawn. We are still here.”