OPINION — In September 2024, I was part of a small delegation that visited Ukraine to study the situation on the ground in that country, try to understand first-hand how Ukraine’s war to defend itself against Russia’s aggression was going, and gauge the will of the Ukrainian people to continue fighting this terrible conflict. On the eve of our arrival in Kyiv, there was a lot of talk among “Ukraine watchers” that the Biden administration was getting ready to lift the Washington-imposed restrictions on how Kyiv could use weapons provided by the U.S. and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) to defend itself. Many believed that a visit by Secretary of State Blinken to Kyiv would bring with it the much-awaited lifting of restrictions, something most Ukrainians were hoping for.
But for every “action” there is a “reaction,” and in this case the Kremlin’s “action” was designed to turn Washington’s “action” into “inaction.” Now those restrictions have been lifted – but back then, before Blinken even arrived in Kyiv, Moscow started to fill the information space with threats. Vladimir Putin made it clear that any use of Western-weapons systems against Russian forces on Russian territory would cross the Kremlin’s “red line.”
President Joe Biden and his counterparts in Brussels were warned not to dare cross Putin’s “red line,” because the consequences would lead to an escalation of conflict between Moscow and the West. Sadly, Blinken didn’t lift the restrictions during his visit to Kyiv, and they weren’t lifted during Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelensky’s visit to the U.S. later that month.
The White House had clearly heard Putin’s message about “red lines.” But had the White House ever considered how many red lines Putin and his forces have crossed, since Russia’s 2014 invasion of Ukraine?
The journey to Kyiv
Our small delegation of three traveled from Warsaw to the Polish-Ukrainian border by car, where we disembarked and walked through Polish and Ukrainian border posts on foot. Outside there was a long line of cars and trucks heading west, from Ukraine to Poland, while only a few cars were lined up in the opposite direction. This is the way it’s been for much of the war. On both sides of the border, we saw Ukrainians lingering, some waiting for loved ones to return from other countries, others waiting to head to Poland and beyond. There were women and children, likely being sent abroad by their husbands and fathers to escape Russian attacks.
On the Ukrainian side we met our escort, Valerii. Valerii was our driver, but also our security detail and guide and host. He had already driven hours to meet us at the border, and would drive through the following day and evening to get us to Kyiv.
We started our trip from the border to the Ukrainian capital. Because of near-constant Russian air attacks, there are still no flights into Ukraine; it’s a long journey by train or by car. Our route took us through Lviv, which was hit the previous evening by Russian air strikes that had killed numerous civilians. Soon enough, Ukraine watchers were circulating the wrenching photo of a mother and three small children who were killed by one of the Russian strikes on social media. Maybe I should say “Russian–Iranian strikes,” because many of the armed drones used to strike Ukrainian homes, hospitals, apartment buildings and schools are produced in Iran.
For all the concern about Putin’s “red lines,” and the perils of crossing them, nobody seems to care much about Ukraine’s “red lines.” Seeing the images of the dead mother and her three beautiful children whose lives were taken by a Russian strike, one wonders, where are the West’s “red lines”? And what should we do when they are crossed?
Nearly three years of killing
On the same night that the Russians attacked Lviv, they launched missile and drone strikes on the central city of Poltava, killing 53 Ukrainians. Along with military cadets, more civilians were killed and injured. Was that anywhere near the west’s “red line”? For that matter, what about the Russian massacre at Bucha, early in the war, or the horrific siege of Mariupol? Did those cross our “red lines”?
We drove all day and night to reach Kyiv. Approaching the city, the highway was almost empty as we neared the midnight curfew. At a gas station just outside the city, we saw Ukrainian men and women in military uniforms stopping for coffee, tea and something to eat. You have to wonder how worried the gas station employees are that a Russian strike might hit their gas station, or the fuel tanker parked next to the station.
Closer to the city, the road signs have been removed or directions covered up, moves designed to slow any future Russian ground assault. We passed through a checkpoint manned by armed Ukrainian military personnel and police. Thankfully, our new friend Valerii had a special permit that allowed him to travel after curfew. Tense police and military personnel manned checkpoints around the city – denied time with their families and loved ones. Denied a “normal” lifestyle because of Putin’s aggression against their country.
As we headed through Kyiv’s outskirts, the Soviet-era high rise buildings were dark. Only a few lights were on. It made sense; Ukraine’s energy infrastructure has been relentlessly attacked by Moscow. The Kremlin’s goal: to terrorize and freeze the Ukrainians into submission. Power plants, power lines, nuclear power stations. Solar energy stations and fuel dumps. All are targets. Many have been destroyed. Some have been rebuilt, only to be attacked and destroyed again. Are these “red lines”? Forcing children to go without light to do homework? No heat in their apartments? Cutting power to hospitals?
Air raid alerts
The night before we arrived in Ukraine, the air raid warning app on our phones registered four separate alerts, meaning four attacks by the Russians on Kyiv alone. As we entered central Kyiv, we received a new alert. The city’s inhabitants were asked to move to air raid shelters. But a lone street-cleaning machine was completing its job, cleaning the cobblestone road that leads down towards the Podil district. One has to wonder how much stress that driver was feeling, doing his job in the middle of the night, in a city under air attack.
We arrived at our hotel a little after midnight. We had to ask the guard, who was sleeping in a chair in the lobby, to open the doors for us. Once inside, we learned that the rest of the hotel staff was down in the air raid shelter. They couldn’t emerge until the air raid was over. So we sat in the lobby and waited until 6:30 in the morning, when the air raid warnings ended, and the staff and other hotel guests appeared. We were all exhausted. But nowhere near as exhausted as a mother I saw, carrying her infant from the shelter through the lobby, back towards their room.
Our guide and host
We had another guide, Vitalii, who has an apartment in the city center of town. For the last few hours of the 15-hour drive into the city, he spoke about how he was looking forward to getting home to his bed, and to his one drink before getting some sleep. But when we arrived at the hotel and couldn’t check in, Vitalii, as a good host, refused to go home and instead slept with us in the lobby in an uncomfortable chair. Only once we were all checked in would he agree to leave.
Actually, Vitalii’s apartment wasn’t the sanctuary it should be. Like many Ukrainians, he sent his wife and children abroad to safety after the full-scale Russian invasion of his country in February 2022, and he has been living as a geographic bachelor ever since. When he talks about his apartment, you can hear the sorrow in his voice, the sadness he feels when he arrives home each night to an empty apartment. The pain he lives with, missing years of his marriage and watching his children grow up. And again I thought: Is denying families the right to live together in peace crossing anyone’s “red line”?
Our small delegation finally checked into our rooms, for quick showers, then it was back to the lobby to wait for the café to open so we could get coffee, something to eat and start our rounds of meetings in Kyiv. But the café’s opening was delayed – another air raid. We sat and waited with other guests. Finally, the staff assumed their posts and the café was open for business. We were all beyond tired. But we had meetings to make, and were inspired by the Ukrainians themselves, who live with the threat and stress of attacks daily – and nightly – yet were up and about as Ukraine’s capital started to come to life.
Portraits of the fallen
Having spent almost 24 hours in a car the previous day, we opted to walk to our meetings. The route to one of them took us through a public square in central Kyiv. The square is filled with posters with photos and information about dozens of Ukrainian military personnel who have been killed during the war. These men and women, some of whom were resisting Russia’s aggression back in 2014, have inspired the world with their toughness and resolve. Some lost their lives in violent battles that have seen the worst conventional warfare in Europe since the second World War.
But stopping to look at their faces, we were all struck by how positive each Ukrainian looked. Smiling. Hope gleaming in their eyes. Behind the military fatigues, the body armor and helmets they wore when the photographs were taken, you could see young Ukrainians who never wanted to see war, and just wanted to enjoy life. Like young people anywhere. They wanted to marry. Have families. Build homes and businesses or careers. Collect memories and see their country grow and prosper. Do we consider it “crossing a red line” when someone steals the lives of young people? And destroys their hope?
Attack on the parliament
That night, before curfew, we settled down at our hotel. We were all craving a good night of sleep. But at two in the morning, the air raid sirens went off again. Shortly after, we heard a loud explosion not far from the hotel. An Iranian-made drone had been shot down near the Ukrainian Parliament (Rada). This attack was aimed at a symbol of democracy. Ukrainian air defense forces shot it down, but it came dangerously close to hitting a target.
Throughout our visit, we saw several Ukrainian military-aged men with prosthetics. They were missing limbs, torn off by Putin’s war. One of our hosts for a meal explained how he had been suffering from anxiety attacks caused by the constant Russian threats, and his concerns about the welfare of his loved ones, and his own safety.
A visit to the east
During all of our meetings in Kyiv, the Ukrainians we spoke with showed resolve and resilience. They also continued to make a point of thanking the U.S. and other Western nations for their support. But they also asked how long Washington and Brussels will allow Russia to continue brutalizing their country. Killing civilians. Attacking Ukraine. They asked whether the West actually had any “red lines”?
Later we traveled to the northeast, not far from the Russian border, to the country’s second-largest city, Kharkiv. A group of Ukrainian military officers sat with us and talked about their experiences since 2014 – some have been at war with Russia for ten years now, defending their country. One commander, a former politician, had volunteered to lead Ukrainian troops after February 2022. He recounted how, during the fighting in Bakhmut, he entered combat with 173 troops under his command and left with only three alive. Most had been civilians, like him. Not professional soldiers. They were volunteers who had responded to the expanded Russian invasion of their country. 170 of them, in that one unit, were killed by Russia’s aggression. 170 fellow countrymen who will never return to their wives, children, mothers, fathers or friends.
As we talked, another Ukrainian commander explained that Kharkiv’s energy infrastructure had been decimated by Russian attacks. With the harsh Ukrainian winter coming, he was worried that his parents, who have refused to leave the city even under the constant threat of Russian artillery and air strikes, would not be able to survive the freezing weather without electricity or heat. His parents refuse to leave, because they will not let Putin terrorize them and force them to abandon their home. Is trying to freeze a nation to death considered crossing a “red line”?
History’s lessons
Outside of Kharkiv, we came across a war memorial to Soviet troops who died fighting the fascists here during the Second World War. The memorial was meant to be a reminder of sacrifices made by Soviet citizens – Russians, Uzbeks, Ukrainians, Azerbaijanis, and others – to defend their country against invading fascist forces. The monument remains intact and has not been vandalized or harmed by the so-called “fascists” in Ukraine who Vladimir Putin claimed were threatening Russia when he launched his invasion of his neighbor. But the residents of Kharkiv have not insulted or desecrated the memories of those thousands of Soviet soldiers who gave their lives to stop fascism. Instead, it is Putin who has desecrated the memory of those who sacrificed so much to stop the fascists between 1941-1945.
Back in Lviv, we came across a funeral procession. A local man, an artist, was being buried. He was killed on the front, fighting the Russians. Some of his paintings were on display at the funeral, as a priest read a sermon. Beautiful pieces of art. His body was removed from the church and taken to a local cemetery for burial. As the hearse passed slowly down the main streets of Lviv, Ukrainians lined up to honor this martyr. Did they know that one of their artists had been killed? He will never paint another portrait. Never create again. Is denying the world an artist’s creations crossing a “red line”?
As we headed back to the Ukrainian–Polish border, our new escort checked his phone. “Another air raid in Kyiv Oblast,” he said. His wife and daughter were in Kyiv. He crossed himself, praying that nothing happens to his loved ones. How many times has he had to pray for protection against the evil that is Vladimir Putin’s regime?
As we crossed the border back into Poland, we were standing in front of a Ukrainian man with his wife and their pre-teen daughter. As the family prepared to cross, the Ukrainian border guard had questions about the father’s papers. Was he trying to flee Ukraine to avoid the war? Would the border guards let him leave? I heard the young girl start to cry, as she faced the threat of separation from her father.
Since February 2022, the world has heard about Vladimir Putin’s “red lines,” over and over again. The U.S. and its allies have worried about Putin’s “red lines,” worried that crossing them could provoke a major escalation by the Russians. Maybe even a nuclear one. But what about Putin? Has he ever once stopped to worry about all the red lines he has crossed – and is still crossing? Isn’t it time to remind Putin and his allies that we have “red lines,” too?
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