Americans with Loved Ones in Ukraine Remain Terrified: ‘He’s a Sitting Duck’

Robert Viau’s plan this week was to load his fiancée’s car and to drive west with her and her son to the border of Poland, to get out of southeast Ukraine before the Russian army invaded.

Instead, the 53-year-old Wisconsin man is stranded in a Zaporizhzia motel with little money, no cell phone service, and worst of all, no transportation, his sister Michelle Johannes told National Review on Friday. She said her brother was deserted by his fiancée — his translator and only source of transportation in the country — when the Russian bombs started falling.

“He doesn’t have a car, and he does not speak the language,” Johannes said of her brother, a self-employed chain-link fence installer from Hancock, Wis. “He’s like a sitting duck.”

Viau is one of the likely hundreds, and possibly even thousands of Americans who are stuck in Ukraine while the Russian army continues its invasion. The U.S. government urged Americans two weeks ago to flee the country, and warned that the American military would not be rescuing stragglers. The civilian rescue nonprofit Project Dynamo pulled about two dozen Americans out of Ukraine on Thursday, but it’s a small operation with a handful of volunteers, and rescue operations could become more difficult as the Russians become entrenched.

“The Department of State continues to urge all U.S. citizens in Ukraine to depart immediately if it is safe to do so using any commercial or other privately available ground transportation options,” an agency spokesperson told National Review in an email.

Republican U.S. senators Bill Hagerty and Marsha Blackburn sent a letter this week to Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin demanding answers about the administration’s seeming lack of a plan to rescue Americans.

Johannes is desperately looking for someone to help her brother. She’s reached out to the State Department and to Project Dynamo. She said her brother wants to leave, and he would if he could. “He just needs a freaking car,” she said. “It’s such a simple thing, just a damned car.”

Johannes said her brother met his fiancée online, and they’ve been together several years. Typically, he would spend about six months of the year in Ukraine, where his fiancée is in school.  When he was in Wisconsin, they talked daily using Viber, a messaging app popular in Russia and Ukraine, said Johannes, who admits she had reservations about the relationship.

“They would have meals together via Viber; him here, her there,” Johannes said.

Johannes said her brother traveled to Ukraine in early February to be with his fiancée. She said she lectured him about the plan, questioning why he would go when there were clear threats of war. She said he didn’t know what media reports to believe, and the people he was talking to in Ukraine were skeptical that Russian President Vladimir Putin would order an invasion. “He just wanted to be with his family there,” Johannes said of her brother.

Johannes said it appears her brother’s fiancée decided against leaving the country, and she has instead gone into hiding with her father closer to Kyiv, a hot spot in the invasion.

“She went and never came back,” Johannes said. “And then he didn’t hear from her for a day. And then she contacted him again, and said that she was by her father and she could not leave her father. But then she contacted him again yesterday and said she would be there this morning to pick him up. But that didn’t happen either, and he hasn’t heard from her again.”

Johannes said she’s been able to do video chats with her brother when he’s in the motel, where he has wi-fi. He doesn’t have cellular service, so his phone — and its translation app — don’t work when he leaves the motel. But his finances are dwindling, and the banks and currency exchanges are closed. Johannes said she doesn’t have any way to get money to her brother.

“Today he told us he has one more night worth of money to stay [in the motel], and then he doesn’t know what’s going to happen,” she said. “He has enough money for one more meal and one more night.”

It’s unclear exactly how many Americans are in Ukraine. A State Department spokesperson said there were an estimated 6,600 U.S. citizens living in the country in October. Other estimates of the total number of Americans in Ukraine before the invasion have been higher, from 10,000 to 30,000.

“We are focused on communicating with U.S. citizens residing in Ukraine to learn about their plans and urge them to depart immediately,” the State Department spokesperson said.

Countless other Americans have loved ones trapped in Ukraine who are not American citizens.

Larry and Lori Provost from College Park, Md., are desperately looking for help to rescue three young orphan girls, two of whom they’ve hosted in their home; a twelve-year-old and an eight-year-old girl. The eight-year-old also has a two-year-old sister.

“They’re both just very good kids, very solid kids, and it’s heartbreaking to see what’s going on,” said Larry Provost, a military chaplain candidate and a veteran of Iraq and Afghanistan. “They’re crying to us, they’re messaging us, ‘Please come save us, please save us.’”

Both girls are with their grandmothers near Kyiv. One of the girls is sheltered in a basement, and the other has been on the move and in hiding. Neither girl has a mom or a dad in the picture. The Provosts have remained in contact with the girls since the beginning of the invasion.

“When the attack started, they woke up in the middle of the night to the explosions,” said Lori Provost, who added that she hasn’t slept in two days. “The eight-year-old is tired of listening to the explosions. She can’t take it anymore.”

Larry Provost said the grandmother of the twelve-year-old wants to travel with her granddaughter across the border. The grandmother of the eight-year-old and the two-year-old does not want to leave, and she would prefer to grant legal privileges to another trusted adult who could get the girls out of the country. What they really need more than anything is transportation, Provost said.

“We’re just literally asking for some sort of taxi ride over the border,” he said.

The Provosts are hoping to find someone who could help them rescue the girls.

“We’re just asking God to help these kids, somehow, some way,” Larry Provost said. “They’re the innocent victims of this war. We rely on Jesus, and that’s all we can do. But we’re hoping that God’s people can also do his work in helping to get them to safety.”

According to the U.S. Department of State, American citizens in Ukraine who need emergency assistance and those who remain in Ukraine should complete this online intake form. U.S. citizens seeking to depart Ukraine or who need additional information also can contact the State Department at 1-833-741-2777 (in the United States) or 1-606-260-4379 (from overseas).