My Visit to Ukraine

I had been wanting to visit Ukraine since soon after Russia’s full-scale invasion on February 24, 2022. Due to a number of circumstances, I was not able to go, and then for only a little over a week, until late December of 2024. I would have certainly liked to stay longer but with work obligations and the length of time it takes to get to a country without airline travel due to Russia’s invasion that was all my son Weller and I could manage, this time.

My interest in Ukraine began about twenty years ago as a history major at Cleveland State University when I discovered and began reading extensively about the Holodomor. The Holodomor was Soviet Dictator Joseph Stalin’s ordered famine in Ukraine that killed roughly 3 to 5 million Ukrainians in the winter of 1932/1933. Essentially Stalin, in an effort to collectivize Ukrainian farms and stamp out Ukrainian opposition to Moscow’s dictates, ordered the confiscation of all Ukrainian grain from the farmers in the fall and then denied those farmers and their families the ability to go elsewhere for food that winter. A very crude and brutal but effective way to starve millions of mostly Ukrainian peasant farmers and their families to death. Any discussion of the Holodomor in Ukraine was banned while Ukraine was part of the Russian dominated Soviet Union, which dissolved in the late 1980’s. One of the sites I wanted to visit most in Ukraine was the National Museum of the Holodomor-Genocide which opened in Kyiv in 2008 pictured below.

My interest in Ukraine only heightened when Russian Dictator Vladimir Putin ordered the full-scale invasion of the country on February 24, 2022. My purpose in traveling to Ukraine was to show my support as an American to the Ukrainian people as they fight off Russia’s latest aggression as well as to gather at least a small firsthand glimpse of how the Ukrainians are handling the stress of what is now almost three years of full-scale war. The media available to me in the United States is wildly contradictory, with either the Ukrainian side or the Russian side facing imminent collapse or the war being in a hopeless stalemate destined to last for years into the future. Ascertaining the truth of the matter is impossible with the “fog of war” but at least a clearer vision could be attained by a viewing the country firsthand, even if only in a very limited way.

Once in Ukraine I expected to see clear evidence of a people at war when I visited Lviv and even more so in Kyiv in the form of bomb-damaged buildings and a military presence. Such was not the case at least in the areas I was in, which mostly were the downtown areas of those major cities. There were soldiers around, but mostly going about their day to day lives as ordinary citizens. Signs recruiting men and in a few cases women for military services were common as were memorials, small and large, to those killed while serving in the war. I did hear one time a small parade of soldiers from my hotel room while in Lviv, but they appeared to me unarmed.

In a tour of the areas northwest of Kyiv that had been occupied by the Russian soon after their invasion, the towns of Irpin, Buchna, and Hostomel, there was clear evidence of war damage. Damaged and destroyed houses, apartments, and other buildings of every description were common. More buildings though appeared to have already been rebuilt with many old homes with brand new metal roughs, very similar to what you would see in the States. Some damaged and destroyed buildings have been left as reminders of the harm caused by the Russians, as had the bridge over the Irpin River outside of Kyiv. The earlier bridge that was blown up by the Ukrainians to thwart the advance of the Russians was left as a reminder right next to the brand-new bridge built by the Ukrainians. Collections of destroyed Russian military equipment and civilian vehicles, as well as other small reminders, are common in this area.

In Bucha we visited the Church of Andrew the Apostle which has a memorial behind it erected to memorialize 500 hundred or so Ukrainian civilians killed by the Russians during a little over a month of Russian occupation. Many of those dead had their hands tied behind their backs and had been shot in the back of the head execution style. The memorial was erected behind the Church because while the Russian occupation was still on-going other Ukrainian locals hastily buried the bodies in a mass grave there. Just as with the Holodomor, the Russians have steadfastly denied responsibility.

The Ukrainians themselves in the areas we visited appeared to be going about their day to day lives, going shopping, getting something to eat, the typical activities of those living in and visiting large cities. The temperature while we were there was hovering around freezing but still there were many people out and about, although I was told not so many as prior to Russia’s invasion but more than immediately after.

A telling sign of how the Ukrainians have adapted to living while at war was their reaction to air raid sirens. From my experience when an air raid siren sounds, and they sound frequently, no one really reacts. We were at a food court in a mall in Kyiv when one went off and no one seemed to react. At our hotel in Kyiv we were told to take the sirens seriously and go to the shelter in the basement. In the first instance we dutifully did as we were told. We were the only ones. We followed the lead of the locals and ignored the sirens from then on.

With that said, the death and uncertainty caused by the war is palpable just below the surface. The exact number of dead and wounded is unknown but it is pretty certain that the Ukrainians have lost tens of thousands killed. As stated above, their memorials are frequent. In Maidan Square, where the war arguably began in February of 2014, a spontaneous memorial of little flags placed in the ground for dead soldiers is well tended and well attended. The vast majority of the flags are Ukrainian, but other nations are represented as well, including a couple dozen Americans. Not every dead soldier has a flag, but still the number of flags is impressive in a very sad sense.

Like every war, while many young men go willingly, even enthusiastically, to fight for their country, others are more hesitant, and some even flee. Mothers, daughters, girlfriends, and wives rarely want in times of war their sons, fathers, boyfriends, and husbands to fight and risk their lives far from home even if fighting for the country they all love, so three years in finding new recruits is difficult. This does not mean the country is ready to surrender. The focus of the heaviest fighting now is in the Donetsk region, over four hundred miles southeast of the capital of Kyiv and about 730 miles due east of Lviv, a little less than the distance between Chicago and New York City.

The lightly populated settlements and small towns are still defended by Ukrainians from all over the country, albeit with an emphasis on preserving Ukrainian lives and inflicting maximum damage on Russian forces. Russian forces are gaining ground in the form of scattered tree lined fields and obliterated settlements and towns but at tremendous costs. According to what is generally considered a very reliable source of information on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the Institute for the Study of War, Russia gained about 4,180 square kilometers in Ukraine at the cost of 420,000 dead and wounded in 2024. Ukraine is a country of 603,700 square kilometers, meaning in all of 2024 Russia gained less than 1% of the territory Ukraine at staggering losses. If Russia progresses anywhere close to Ukraine’s population centers, I do not expect the fighting age men of those cities who are now hesitant to join the fight to continue to be so reluctant. Hopefully those standing on the sidelines now, both inside and outside of Ukraine, will see the wisdom of confronting the Russians earlier.

With Russia quickly burning through their vast arsenal of tanks, armored vehicles, and artillery that are one of their bequests from the Soviet Union, Russia will by necessity need to rely more and more on manpower versus firepower if they are to continue their war of aggression against Ukraine and the casualty rate for Russian troops, and their North Korean proxies, will only increase.

The land Russia gained is only a small part of the equation in trying to discern how this war is progressing. Prior to the full-scale invasion and immediately after the Russian Navy completely dominated the Black Sea from their naval base at Sevastopol in Crimea and controlled the shipment of Ukrainian grain via the Black Sea. Now, due to attacks by Ukraine, which really has no navy, the Russian Navy has for all practical purposes been pushed out of the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov and Sevastopol has been turned into little more than a target of Ukrainian sea born drones. Ukrainian grain is making it to market again to the benefit of vast swaths of the world’s most needy.

Directly related to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine the Russians have seen their erstwhile ally and beneficiary, Bashar Al-Assad of Syria, toppled, significantly jeopardizing the Russian’s naval base and military airport in Syria, from which Russia projected power throughout the Middle East and Syria. Russia’s other confirmed ally, Iran, is being pounded by Israel. Russia’s hold on the self-proclaimed autonomous region of Transnistria in Moldova, which borders Ukraine, is slipping quickly due to Russia no longer providing Transnistria with oil to warm their homes and fuel their factories. Russia’s small but powerful neighbor to the northwest, Finland, along with Sweden have joined NATO in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Russia’s nearest neighbors understand the significance of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Oil is Russia’s most lucrative export. Prior to the invasion Russia provided roughly 40% of Europe’s oil and now it is down to around 5% with four of the five pipelines Russia had transmitting oil now shut down. Russia has also committed such a large percentage of its labor force to their “special military operation” that their domestic economy is in tatters. Ever increasing inducements in the form of cash payments to soldiers has led to rising inflation. Russia has mortgaged their present and their foreseeable future for pariah status. At what cost to Russia would China and perhaps India come to Russia’s rescue?

At the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Russia bombed and destroyed Ukrainian targets with virtual impunity to their own territory. Three years in, Ukraine has developed long range drones that have been systematically targeting military and oil production facilities in Russia with increasing effectiveness. As the war continues the range and frequency of Ukrainian drone attacks upon Russia will increase while Russia’s ability to defend an ever-increasing number of targets will decrease.

The full-scale war presently being fought between Russia and Ukraine did not begin with Russia’s attack on February 24, 2022. The war began when the Ukrainian people chose to defend themselves and not to surrender their fate to the Russians. If the Ukrainians had not chosen to defend themselves both the Holodomor and the fate of Buchna show us that the alternative would not have been an end of hostilities or peace, but a slaughter of the Ukrainians at the hands of the Russians. For the same reason, this war only really ends when the Russians decide, for whatever reason, to cease to attack. If the Ukrainians decide to cease to defend themselves first the war does end, but only for another slaughter of Ukrainians by the Russians to begin.

I pray that we will not see that day.