With everything almost shut on Friday, the second day of the Russia-Ukraine war, Lviv, a city in Western Ukraine, had a cat cafe that was open. This famous cat cafe is still open as the owners said they cannot leave Lviv and to feed the 20 cats, they need to be in business.

“Our cats are brave,” the owners told CNN’s Erin Burnett who posted a tweet about how she ended up at the cute cat cafe, while she was looking for something to eat while everything else was shut.

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“It is a dark and heavy day here. But I found something that couldn’t stop a smile. The only food I saw open – Cat Cafe. The owners are making food with what they have – they smiled: Our cats are brave,” Erin said.

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“A place is made up of so many tiny stories. And each one is big. The cat cafe is open because the owners say – there are 20 cats here to feed. ‘This is our life’. They will not leave,” the CNN journalist added.

In her show, Erin Burnett said, “The streets here were almost deserted by early afternoon. Nothing was open. Restaurants that were busy last week were totally shuttered. After filming around the city, I went out to get lunch for our team. After half an hour walking, the only place I saw open was the cat cafe. Inside was a family clearly fleeing the Russian invasion, their giant backpacks, blankets on them… but they were smiling because they saw the cat wheel.”

Meanwhile, Russian troops stormed toward Ukraine’s capital Saturday, and street fighting broke out as city officials urged residents to take shelter. The country’s president refused an American offer to evacuate, insisting that he would stay. “The fight is here,” he said.

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As dawn broke in Kyiv, it was not immediately clear how far the soldiers had advanced. Skirmishes reported on the edge of the city suggested that small Russian units were probing Ukrainian defences to clear a path for the main forces.

But the swift movement of the troops after less than three days of fighting further imperilled a country clinging to independence in the face of a broad Russian assault, which threatened to topple the democratic government and scramble the post-Cold War world order.

The street clashes followed fighting that pummelling bridges, schools and apartment buildings, and resulted in hundreds of casualties.