On the menu today: By the time you read this, I’ll be someplace else, but I spent a day in Kovel, a small city in the northwest corner of Ukraine, not far from the Belarusian border. There, I spoke to the city’s mayor, Ihor Chaika, and to a commander in one of Ukraine’s civilian-defense units. This war is not close to being done.
On the Ground in Ukraine
Kovel, Ukraine — Yesterday, I spoke to a commander in one of Ukraine’s civilian-defense units. Picture something akin to the U.S. Office of Civilian Defense during World War II, but carrying guns and being prepared to fight Russian soldiers if they come rolling into town, as they’ve done elsewhere in your country.
I’m not sure if this man wanted me to use his name, so I’ll lean on the side of caution and use one of his nicknames, “Wolf.” He’s spent most of his life in the Ukrainian military and came over to the U.S. for training with the U.S. military twice, once in the late 1990s and once in the late 2000s. His English is very good, but he periodically consulted with our translator to figure out how to translate a particular word or term. An injury in 2017 forced him to retire from the military, and he now trains Ukrainian civilians on how to defend themselves and their communities.
Wolf is also an instructor of martial arts, and many of his students ended up joining the Ukrainian military, where, he said proudly, “They have become good leaders of their squads.” Then the expression on his face darkened. “Two have already been killed.”
He told me that he trains volunteer Ukrainian civilians in “basic training, marksmanship . . . how to settle mines [I presume he meant “defuse”], how to clear trenches, how to camouflage.” He said he and his colleagues have taught civilians how to “make bottles,” and after a bit of back and forth, we realized he was taking about Molotov cocktails — a hand-thrown incendiary weapon, usually alcohol or fuel in a bottle with a fuse, designed to shatter and spread fire over a targeted area.
“We still have boxes of bottles,” he added.
I interviewed Wolf in Kovel, a small city of 67,000, roughly the population of Centerville, Va., about 40 miles south of Ukraine’s border with Belarus. Kovel has not turned into a front-line battle area, but the war has changed lives here in countless ways. The city has buried 47 men who have died serving in the Ukrainian military in the war, it is regularly subject to air-raid sirens, and bombs hit the power station during last winter, knocking out electricity for two days. For much of the past year and a half, this region of Ukraine has looked north with concern — first for Russian planes making airstrikes from Belarusian bases, and then with the question of whether Belarus would permit its territory to be used to launch a ground offensive. Earlier this month, it appeared that Russia had withdrawn its military aircraft and helicopters from Belarus, but in war, very little is clear or predictable.
Similar to statements I received from Mayor Chaika, Wolf told me that while the Russian invasion started in February 2022, the war itself really began in 2014 with the Russian annexation of Crimea and the beginning of harassment attacks in the Donbas region.
“We’ve always known who our enemy is, whether it’s 2000, or 2014, or now — Russians!” Wolf said. “The situation is always the same. We tried to prepare our youth, telling them to join the army. Try to advance, get promoted, be a squad leader, get promoted to officers. In 2014, people were not ready.”
Wolf believes the war will not end soon and predicts it will be fought for three to four years. “It’s history — World War II, Stalin, Putin,” he said. “It doesn’t matter how many dead people there are, Putin will not stop. He could even lose 5 million or 10 million, he will not stop. Look what happened in Chechnya.” He’s not expressing fear or dread as he says this, just casually assessing the ruthlessness and seemingly endless tolerance for casualties that the Russian dictator has already demonstrated.
But Wolf also believes that his countrymen are even more determined. “Ukrainians have never relied on their government — whether it’s [president Volodymyr] Zelensky, or [former president Petro] Poroshenko. We rely on ourselves. We won’t wait for orders to do something. Offense, defense, assault, ambush — just do it. This is our land.” Later he added, “They can come, but nobody lives. . . . We are accustomed to everything. Ukrainians can live everywhere. Even in the desert, we will find water.”
That said, Wolf also believes that the Ukrainian government “has to prepare people for the next stage of the war.”
At the beginning of the war, just a little to the east of here, the Russian army attempted to rapidly seize Kyiv. Spetsnaz special forces infiltrated the city, supported by airborne operations and an intended rapid advance of tanks and other armored vehicles from the north. Two suburbs around Kyiv experienced drastically different outcomes. In Irpin, civilian volunteers assisted the Ukrainian ground forces and Territorial Defense Forces (roughly the equivalent of the Army Reserves). The repulsion of the invading Russian forces became one of the key early Ukrainian victories of the war, and Ukraine’s defense ministry recognized “the mass heroism and resilience of the residents and the defenders” of Irpin with the honorary title, “Hero City of Ukraine.”
By contrast, Bucha, just a little to the north, experienced a nightmare — a civilian massacre with dozens of bodies in the streets, and ultimately more than 400 civilians killed. The brutality was most horrifying in the small details; Russian soldiers executed Ukrainian civilians — from senior citizens to teenagers — and then used the dead Ukrainian civilians’ phones to call their families at home.
“Bucha . . . I don’t know if the people were prepared,” Wolf said.
(The above poster, seen along the street, reads, “Security Service of Ukraine: Defending Ukraine Together.” The Security Service of Ukraine, usually referred to as SBU for Služba bezpeky Ukrajiny, is like the FBI and intelligence services of Ukraine, with a special-forces unit as well. Under the Ukrainian constitution, it is part of the military, and answers to the president.)
ADDENDUM: I mentioned at the tail end of yesterday’s Morning Jolt that the air-raid siren went off while I was in the city hall of Kovel. Mayor Chaika and his staff told me that around here, days can pass without an air-raid alert, or there can be three or four in one day. Ukraine has 24 oblasts — regions roughly akin to states or provinces — and when a potential threat is detected, the air-raid sirens are activated oblast-wide. I’m in Volyn Oblast, which is about 7,700 square miles, an area around the size of New Jersey. When the alarm sounds, you may be close to the potential target area or some distance away. This may help explain the nonchalant reaction from the people around me yesterday.
As for the commenter who yesterday, upon learning I was in Ukraine, insisted that, “A pundit isn’t a reporter,” well . . . this one is!