The Ukraine Diaries is a series of personal writings by national security experts who joined The Cipher Brief’s recent visit to Kyiv as part of a delegation led by Gen. David Petraeus (Ret.) This latest trip follows two earlier visits to Ukraine this year by The Cipher Brief team, including The Cipher Brief’s Kyiv Economic & Security Forum that launched in May 2023.
THE UKRAINE DIARIES — Arriving in Kyiv by overnight train, the scene at the Central Train Station is not what one might expect. In spite of the threat of Russian missile attacks, the station is bustling with activity. People commuting to work. Business people delivering goods. Taxis picking up and dropping off customers.
The drive from the Station to downtown is a repeat of the same scene. The streets filled with Ukrainians going about their business. A repeat in the evening. Locals heading home after work. Stopping at cafes and restaurants to meet friends and talk. People sitting in parks and squares laughing and chatting. Families out for a stroll. Ukraine is at war, but the citizens of Kyiv will not be terrorized by Vladimir Putin.
At some point late at night or very early in the morning, the Russians launch one of their nightly air raids. Russian pilots no longer dare to try to reach Kyiv. Instead, the Russians lob cruise missiles and armed drones at the Ukrainian capital. Somewhere in the distance you can hear sirens.
Signs on the streets and in doorways remind the locals to go to air raid shelters when the alarms go off. But few people do. Most roll over in bed, listen for a second, and go back to sleep. Maybe it is because they have become too used to being attacked after 18 plus months of Russia’s attacks? Or maybe they just have great find confidence in the abilities of the Ukrainian Air Force, which operates the country’s air defense systems and has quickly mastered the U.S. provided Patriot Missile system.
Some in the West suggested it would take a year for the Ukrainians to be ready to effectively use the Patriot. Some argued that the system would be no match for Vladimir Putin’s “unstoppable” Kinzhal Cruise Missiles. Yet, the Ukrainians defied expectations by learning to employ the system effectively within a few months of receipt, and successfully shooting down Putin’s “super weapon”.
The morning news reports that the overnight Russian missiles and Iranian-made drones were downed before hitting any targets. Unfortunately, the same news reports that cities like Odessa were not as fortunate. There, Russian missiles have again struck civilian targets and killed innocent people. Kyiv has a Patriot Battery. Odessa does not.
Speaking about the air raids, one of our Ukrainian military interlocutors jokes that the only thing Putin is doing by launching nightly air attacks is putting the citizens of Kyiv on Eastern Standard Time (EST), bringing the Ukrainians and Americans even closer together.
Follow Cipher Brief CEO & Publisher Suzanne Kelly for a series of Behind-the-Scenes pictures from The Cipher Brief’s Trip to Ukraine on LinkedIn
While thinking about these air raids, one is reminded of the fact that on the day U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken arrived in Kyiv in early September, the Russians launched an attack. This was a reminder that while the U.S. administration has been extremely cautious and worried about “provoking” Moscow, Putin continues to demonstrate no concerns about potentially going too far and putting the life of the Secretary of State and his delegation, at risk. Maybe this will encourage the U.S. Administration to be more forward leaning and push critical assistance to the Ukrainians much faster than it has to date.
During Blinken’s visit, his Ukrainian host, Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba uses the occasion to address the American people. Like every Ukrainian we met during this visit, he starts by stressing how thankful the Ukrainian people are for the aid and assistance provided by the U.S. to Ukraine to date. The assistance is vital in helping Ukraine stop Russia’s attempt to destroy their nation and the Ukrainians as a people.
Kuleba makes an extremely important point that Americans who are opposed to sending continuing aid to Ukraine, need to hear: The Ukrainians are not asking Americans to fight their war for them. They themselves are sacrificing their own sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, husbands and wives, to go to the front and fight. This is not the “forever war” scenario that Americans have grown so tired of after years of war in Afghanistan, Iraq and other regions of the world. This time, the Ukrainians are doing the fighting. The Ukrainians are standing directly in the way of a threat that is ultimately as dangerous to the U.S. and Europe as it is to Ukraine. The threat of Putin getting away with dictating his will upon his neighbors.
When we ask our Ukrainian interlocutors how they define “victory” in their fight against the Russians, most stress that their tactical objective is the removal of all Russian forces from Ukrainian territory. But their strategic objective is to pursue the reforms in their country that will guarantee that Ukraine builds a healthy rule of law government in the future. And despite the fact that the Ukrainians are fighting a war for their survival, they are intensely focused on building institutions and drafting and adopting laws that are needed to reign in corruption, establish democratic traditions and guarantee that the Ukrainian people have a say in the future governance of their country.
Read The Ukraine Diaries: Is Ukraine a Vital U.S. National Security Interest by Cipher Brief Expert and former senior CIA Officer Paul Kolbe
Who are these officials we are meeting with? They are military officers, members of parliament and other government leaders. Many of the military officials, until Russia’s expanded invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, were civilians who answered the call to arms to defend their country.
Many of the civilians are actually serving in some capacity in the country’s Armed Forces. Politicians we sit with have returned to Kyiv to meet our delegation from the front, and will return back to the fight as soon as the meetings are over. We are received in government buildings, private offices and in commercial enterprises that have volunteered space as temporary headquarters for military units.
One such HQS is in a warehouse. Military volunteers work side by side with sales representatives and marketing experts. It is as if we are sitting with the farmers of New England who fought for our own independence. “Minute Men” and “Minute Women” who are trying to sustain Ukraine’s economy while also manning the ramparts in response to Moscow’s siege of their homeland.
At times, you forget you are in a country that is at war. You forget, because the Ukrainians are not only living, but seem to be thriving.
During a large gathering of Ukrainian and foreign visitors, a young Ukrainian soldier who was badly wounded in fighting, is on stage with other Ukrainian veterans and two Western Moderators. One of the moderators asks the young man how he feels about the fact that the nightlife in Kyiv is so active. People are out having a good time? Maybe she expects him to be bitter or angry? But he tells the audience that he is happy to see people living their lives. After all, this is what he went to defend. It is what other Ukrainian soldiers are fighting for, the right to live their lives. For the right to be happy and not subjected to the will of another country’s autocratic ruler.
Of course, despite the laughter you hear in cafes, or the activity on bustling streets and in shops, you are constantly reminded of the fact that Ukraine is at war.
Beyond the nightly air raids, as you pass through key intersections or by government buildings, you can see the Czech Hedgehogs piled up, ready to be re-deployed if there is a threat to the city. Barbered wire is coiled and ready to be spread across roads. Some buildings remain damaged from earlier Russian air attacks and it is impossible not to see the wounded on the streets, victims of Putin’s war.
At night, near the main train station, there is a stream of ambulances going to and from the platforms, picking up the wounded veterans of the front and delivering them to Kyiv’s hospitals. Sadly, it’s a steady rotation.
Read It’s Time for the West to Embrace Ukraine’s Way of War, Not Doubt It by Non-Resident Russia Fellow at the Institute for the Study of War Nataliya Bugayova
You visit the graves of those who sacrificed their lives to stop the aggression against their country. And you wonder how their neighbors to the east can be so cruel. Some of our interlocutors have clearly not slept well in days, weeks, months.
During one meeting, as our host is trying to carry on a conversation with us, his cell phone rings and, looking at the caller ID, he looks at us and says “Excuse me, but “war”, then gets up to take the call. During another meeting, a key figure in the Ukrainian Presidential cabinet is late to arrive because of an urgent issue, and he has to cut the meeting short after he receives a call from his President. They say that the Ukrainians and Russians are fellow Slavs. “Brothers and Sisters.” You have to wonder how can one sibling treat another so badly?
And as an American you also have to wonder, how it is that some at home can talk about cutting off assistance to the Ukrainians? How can some in Europe believe that pushing Kyiv to make peace with Moscow on Putin’s terms - is the right thing to do? How can anyone in the West not understand that allowing Putin to get away with his aggression against his neighbors will eventually lead to disaster for the West. How can people not understand that while the Ukrainians are fighting, Putin has declared war on all of us?
After 20 plus years of spending ‘blood and treasure’ in South Asia and the Middle East, Americans have every right to demand that our assistance to Ukraine be carefully distributed and used for the purpose it is intended for. They have the right to expect that the money shared with Kyiv is used wisely and invested in projects that will benefit Ukraine as a nation, vice individual Ukrainian officials, politicians or business people. They have a right to demand that Washington ensure that mistakes made in Afghanistan and Iraq, and even Russia in the 1990s, when money that was given by the U.S. to those countries was poorly monitored and often siphoned off by corrupt officials to pay for their private interests far away from the countries and projects the funding was intended for.
But instead of denying the Ukrainians aid, we should demand that the Administration guarantee that it will allow enough U.S. officials to deploy to Ukraine to oversee the proper distribution and utilization of the aid. The Ukrainians are not only open to the direct cooperation with their U.S. partners, but they are calling for it.
Like the “Minutemen” at Lexington and Concord, lets lean forward and heed the call to defend the values we were raised to believe in.
Find out more about The Cipher Brief’s Kyiv Economic and Security Forum 2024.
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