Ukraine Journey 

Kyiv, July 18th

The wail of air raid sirens is associated with grainy, black and white film footage from WW II, something from my parent’s generation. I am on top of my hotel in Kyiv when this haunting, unmistakeable, sound begins rolling across the city’s rooftops, moving closer as more join in.

When missiles are detected a general alert is issued and then narrowed to a more specific area, if there is time. As the capital, Kyiv has stronger air defence than elsewhere but that is no guarantee of safety—the last attack three weeks ago destroyed a nine story residential building right here in the city’s fashionable Shevchenkivskyi district, 3km away.

Nothing came “through” today but the missile attacks are not just symbolic, they send a message—no one is safe, even far from the front lines. Ukraine calls them a war crime. Russian authorities describe their targets as military but often do not bother to do even this, openly targeting shopping malls and residential areas. 

I have been in Kyiv less than 24 hours when the first air raid happens, a fitting, even mild, start to a three month in-country assignment. Locals advise to download the Air Raid App and to follow the two wall rule—get as many walls between yourself and the building’s outside wall as possible. Except that many do not. Air raid warnings are so common people often ignore them. Taken more seriously is the nightly 11PM curfew that is strictly enforced by soldiers. And do not attempt to call Uber an hour before curfew when the bars empty fast, the streets full of people heading home as quickly as they can. 

That Ukraine is at war is obvious in Kyiv. I even saw President  Volodymyr Zelensky on the street today, ambling along, small in stature, unshaven, wearing his trademark military fatigues and olive green t-shirt, surrounded by a group of men in uniform. 

Except it was not him. But it could have been; his everyman persona substitutes for popular experience in a city where soldiers are everywhere, on and off duty, walking singly and in groups. I am even stopped at my first my road block, soldiers asking for my passport and scanning my cell phone for videos. 

The war is a whole of society effort. Nearly everyone participates. Notable are the prominence of Ukrainian celebrities in military service—pop stars, news presenters, activists. Several of them have died, their funerals being national events. Some of the country’s greatest talent, the best and the brightest, is being lost, much like Western Europe’s Lost Generation in WWI. 

The Ukraine military does not release casualty figures but a presidential aid disclosed last month, at the height of fighting at Severodonetsk in the Donbas, that 100-200 Ukrainian soldiers were dying every day. It is a huge number. Fighting there is notable for brutality, described as being closer to the First World War than any modern war, with artillery barrages and human wave assaults, advances counted in meters.

The character of the two sides is a remarkable comparison. The structure of any military reflects the nature of the host society. Ukraine mounts a decentralised, participatory defence in an open society under a democratic government. Russia’s military is a rigid, top down structure, operating under an authoritarian state.

Motivation in the Ukraine military is high and participation is mostly, but not entirely, voluntary. Tactics are flexible and local commanders can adjust them according to actual battlefield conditions and opportunities. Following NATO doctrine, now the operational model for a military fast reforming its way out of a Soviet past, responsibility is delegated downward, particularly to junior and non-commissioned officers. 

This nimble approach is credited with the Ukrainians’ better than anticipated performance against larger Russian forces.

The Russian military in Ukraine is described as lumbering and wasteful. Conditions are poor and morale is low. Commands are rigidly applied, even where this is wasteful of lives and material. Ukrainian soldiers have described Russian opponents taking a failed approach, again and again, at enormous cost—following orders. In a now famous incident in March, a Russian soldier is reported to have killed his own commanding officer, in rage, after the loss of so many comrades.

Observers see historical continuity in Russian military tactics. Quantity, Joseph Stalin said, has its own quality. The current approach may be wasteful in human lives, even inhumane, but by soaking up firepower and challenging the Ukraine to a war of attrition, it does play to a Russian strength in size and willingness to absorb losses. 

This may or may not work—Ukraine has kept up resistance and horrendous Russian losses are degrading its forces. But Vladimir Putin and the security people he has surrounded himself with are determined to carry on, whatever the cost. Any pause or cease-fire may only be to buy time and resume. For the Ukrainians there is little choice—they must fight to not lose territory, which is even more difficult to reclaim, and go on mauling Russian forces until they are unable to continue. 

The alternative is too horrible to contemplate—giving up their freedoms, accepting corrupt, authoritarian government for themselves again, much like Russia’s own model of governance.

Nearby Kyiv’s handsome Mykhailivska Square is mounting a display of destroyed Russian military equipment, tanks and armoured personnel carriers, some of it gathered from the Kyiv suburbs—names that are now well known: Irpin, Bucha, Hostomel—where the Russian advance was stopped, 20km away.

Videos of Russian tanks being blown up in Ukraine are now so common on social media they have become a genre themselves, often accompanied by blaring heavy metal music, a reduction to a video game meme. 

I had a good look at a destroyed Russian tank today. The force that detaches a tank turret is a fearsome thing, buckling thick steel. Terrible ends were met in this destroyed equipment, now littering a fine city square in front of a Ukrainian Orthodox Church. The saddest display of all is a Fiat car that had been occupied by fleeing civilians, pock marked with bullet holes, the interior littered with shattered glass and marked with blood stains. 

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Kyiv is a great European city, a metropolis with wide avenues and grand architecture, a confection that is a feast for the eye and balm to the soul for those that live here or learn to love it as visitors. It may be a city at war now but has not lost its energy. It is still a place of hipster neighbourhoods, e-scooters, fashionable shops and beautiful people who fill the cafes and bars, spilling out on to the street on the warm summer evenings. Before the war it was a place on the cusp, with a huge art scene, proclaiming itself the new Berlin and moving on to greater things. 

Until the war. Everyone speaks of it as a rupture; now vs the past, what was before when lives were unfolding and the future was bright. From 4 million the city has shrunk by a third. That is a huge contraction and those people aren’t coming back soon. But Kyiv, and the war, carry on.