It is only a few weeks since Nadezhda Zhelyova last saw her former student Nikolai Volkov, when he returned to the technical college where she teaches to discuss life as a volunteer army medic on Ukraine’s frontline.

On Wednesday, Zhelyova held a wreath in Ukraine’s blue-and-yellow colours and waited in the rain for a lift to Volkov’s funeral, a week after a sniper shot him in the head only about 30km from where she now stood in the southeastern city of Mariupol.

“He was determined to become a military paramedic and got the training last year, and recently he came to tell the students about it,” she said of Volkov, who was 20.

“He said he’d already treated several soldiers who were wounded in action. He was a really nice, bright lad.”

Five years of fighting between government troops and Russian-led militants who control parts of eastern Ukraine have claimed some 13,000 lives and displaced 1.6 million people, but the war feels distant to much of this country of 42 million.

Not to Mariupol, however, a city of 500,000 people who sometimes still hear artillery duels east of the city, attend funerals for young men like Volkov, and fear their strategic port on the Sea of Azov could be the target of any new wave of military or economic aggression from Russia.

Untested entertainer

Like most of Ukraine, however, the city seems poised to back an untested entertainer in Sunday’s presidential election over an incumbent who declared temporary martial law here last December, when Russian ships in the Black Sea fired on and seized three Ukrainian vessels and 24 crewmen sailing to Mariupol.

President Petro Poroshenko’s critics accuse him of using the incident to burnish his credentials as a tough wartime president, but in the first round of voting last month he trailed far behind Volodymyr Zelenskiy, whose closest brush with politics until now was playing a hapless head of state in a television comedy.

The latest polls give Zelenskiy a greater lead over Poroshenko than he enjoyed in the first round, when he took 30 per cent to the incumbent’s 16 per cent – and in Mariupol he enjoyed an even bigger advantage over his rival.

With his slogan “Army, language, faith”, Poroshenko sought to parlay the nation’s patriotism into political support, but even among active-duty soldiers the comic Zelenskiy gained almost as many votes as the wartime commander-in-chief.

“People ask me why I’m not for Poroshenko, if I’m a volunteer who helps the military,” says Galina Odnorog, a former businesswoman who became one of Mariupol’s most prominent activists when the conflict erupted in 2014.

“But we volunteers have always known that we must change politics and fight corruption in Ukraine,” she adds, highlighting two of Poroshenko’s perceived failings.

“His supporters say that if he doesn’t win, what will become of Ukraine? Our oligarchic clans don’t want change, but it is exactly what the country needs to strengthen its democracy. Poroshenko says that if the president is not him then it is bound to be an enemy of Ukraine, but I don’t believe that.”

Odnorog was among countless Ukrainians who in 2014 helped the country’s embattled army and volunteer battalions through the chaotic start of the conflict, collecting money and delivering supplies to the front as Moscow exploited the country’s post-revolution confusion to seize Crimea and destabilise the east.

As the militants’ so-called Donetsk People’s Republic (DNR) expanded in spring 2014, its supporters seized state buildings in Mariupol and the city’s fate hung in the balance, until government troops decisively retook control.

The violent struggle for Mariupol and subsequent deadly shelling of the city by DNR forces stirred in many of its residents a powerful patriotism and keen sense of self-reliance – and of responsibility for the safety and future well-being of their city.

“It turned out there were plenty of Russian-speaking patriots here who were determined to protect Mariupol and Ukraine,” says Dmytro Chychera, who swapped engineering for volunteering and civil society work at the start of the war.

“Mariupol became an eastern fortress that fought off occupation. We had lots of active citizens doing everything from digging trenches to getting food and medicine to the troops, to working with kids – an entire anthill of people helped out,” he recalls.

Now Chychera leads an NGO called Skhidna Brama (Eastern Gate), which offers hundreds of classes and events each year ranging from IT and photography courses to lectures on anti-corruption efforts, and offers a free co-working space in a former boxing gym that would not look out of place in any west European city.

Chychera shares many Ukrainians’ concerns over Zelenskiy’s lack of experience, refusal to make detailed policy pledges and connections to oligarch Ihor Kolomoisky, whose channel broadcasts his shows.

“I do think he represents a certain danger to the country,” Chychera says.

“But I also know that if things turn out badly and he tries to go in a direction that threatens people’s freedom and dreams for the future, then they will get rid of him quickly.”

Zelenskiy (41) insists that he shares Poroshenko’s desire to see Ukraine ultimately join the European Union and Nato, which became the country’s strategic goals after the 2014 Maidan revolution ousted its then Kremlin-backed leaders.

Russia flatly rejects the notion of Ukrainian accession to Nato, however, and accuses the alliance of emboldening Kiev into allegedly breaking the agreed rules of passage into the Sea of Azov last November, prompting the Black Sea clash.

Russian warning

“Ukrainian attempts not to comply with these procedures carry the risk of triggering a military conflict between Ukraine and the Russian Federation, into which Nato could be drawn,” Russia’s upper house of parliament warned last week.

Russia also accuses Nato states of stoking tension by sending warships into the Black Sea, despite its own rapid militarisation of occupied Crimea and construction of a bridge to the peninsula that prevents the biggest cargo ships reaching Mariupol.

The city’s vulnerability became clear last spring, when Russian security service vessels began stopping and searching hundreds of ships heading to and from Mariupol, sometimes for more than a week – threatening the port with a de facto blockade.

“By November-December the situation was critical and we didn’t know if any ships would be coming in January or what the future of the port would be,” says Marina Pereshivailova, head of energy supplies and a union leader at the Mariupol port, where she has worked for 33 years.

“Before the war we were handling 15 million tonnes of cargo a year and now it’s barely five to six million. It’s difficult but we’re staying afloat,” she told The Irish Times.

“Even though we had felt something bad coming, we were shocked when Russia seized our ships and sailors. But we’re stronger than in 2014. If then we were scared and confused, now we are ready to look after ourselves. We’ll protect each other, our port and Mariupol if we have to.”

Five years after a revolution, the annexation of Crimea and the start of a debilitating war, it would be understandable if Ukrainians now made a conservative choice in their elections.

Yet in Mariupol and most of the country they seem ready for another dramatic change on Sunday, and quite sure of their ability to handle whatever it brings.

“I’m optimistic for Mariupol and Ukraine,” says Odnorog.

“In 2014 we defended our city and I’m more confident of it’s future now. Whoever comes to power, I think we can keep going in the right direction.”