Life under the Russian Guns, Part 1

Kyiv

Socialist realist statues until recently adorned the railway station at Mukachevo in western Ukraine. They have now been removed. Photo by Kim Reczek in 2023.

For a country in its third year of all-out war against a neighbour 28 times its size, Ukraine still functions remarkably well.

Credit cards tap, border guards are courteous and efficient, and the trains not only run reliably but are fastidiously punctual, neither of which can be said of my homeland.

The most arduous part of our journey to Kyiv was, in fact, the stopping service from Budapest that departed at 2.30am and seemed to stop at every farm implement on the Hungarians plains.

It finally deposited us, after two changes - one scheduled, the other not - at Ukraine’s western border some six hours later.

Csap, in eastern Hungary, where we dashed down an early morning espresso, was a shuffle of sullen men, ladies with shopping trolleys of rice, pasta and other staples, and irritable cashiers. It was a struggle to navigate – even in a language I speak well.

By contrast the Colosseum Pizzeria in the town of Mukachevo, our first stop in Ukraine, was a festival of boisterous families. Above the restaurant $20 bought us a basic but clean room with a hot shower and a comfortable bed.

But even as children clamoured for more ice cream, there were also the accoutrements of war: a well-flagged bomb shelter, sandbagged buildings and the intermittent wail of an air raid siren.

There is a feel to this part of central Europe known as Transcarpathia – the land beyond the Carpathian Mountains – that is all of it’s own.

For centuries it was the easternmost outpost of the Hapsburg empire, home to a swirling mix of Hungarians, Romanians, Ruthenians, Poles, Germans, Czechs, Jews and Gypsies.

Today the buildings in Mukachevo are solidly Hapsburg-era. It has a pretty main square with a gentle provincial pace.

But change is underfoot. The eye-catching socialist realist statues outside the railway station have recently been taken down. Few in Ukraine now want to talk about their Soviet past under Moscow’s yoke.

That evening I left the hotel with Kim, who is accompanying me on this trip to take photographs, via a private metal gate that led straight onto the station platform.

There, as we waited for the sleeper to Kyiv, men in uniform kissed young women with tears in their eyes.

We chatted in English and Russian with a professor from Sumy, a town in northern Ukraine near the Russian border.

The lady, who now teaches engineering at a university in Slovakia, was heading home for Easter, but she said that increased artillery attacks on her town were making her nervous.

I have had a keen interest in Russia and Ukraine ever since I was posted to Moscow in the early years of Vladimir Putin’s rule as head of a small bureau for The Daily Telegraph.

Though my permanent home is now in Canada I have visited Ukraine several times since the full-scale invasion began in February 2022.

Now, amid reports of Russian advances on the frontline, Moscow’s use of ferocious new weapons, and a growing war-weariness among Ukrainians, it was time for a revisit.

We made two decisions. The first was that we would document this trip only for this blog and not be distracted pitching stories to other (more-widely-read) publications.

The second was that rather than use the trains, we would rent a car and take a slow drive through eastern Ukraine. This would allow us to stop off in small towns and villages.

The questions we most want to ask over the next week?

How are people coping in the country’s east under the shadow of the Russian guns. What are their hopes, fear and predictions. And, against the backdrop of increasingly industrialised warfare, what do their daily lives look like.

The aim of this trip will not be to cover news. That is amply and capably served up by the daily papers. We plan instead to post, if possible, a daily or close-to-daily diary.

After two nights in Kyiv to prepare, we are now readying to set off early tomorrow morning. We have flak jackets, helmets, a trauma kit, an up-to-date security briefing, batteries and head torches. (We also have a bottle of Armenian cognac and half a Hungarian salami.)

Text and photos will be available to all subscribers, though more personal impressions, ruminations and audio recordings may be for the paid subscribers that have helped make this trip possible.

Furthermore, if you do have a paid subscription, please feel free to ask us questions as we travel (in the comments section below). We want to be your eyes and ears, not just our own. We will endeavour to answer them at day’s end, internet and electricity allowing.

RESEARCH & LINKS

So what of our our pre-trip research?

We rewatched Mariupol, the first film to win Ukraine an Oscar (anyone who hasn’t watched it really should.) I also watched a new documentary by Vice News about opposition in Russia and we both watched a film about the Russian occupation of Kupiansk.

The report that has stuck with me the most was one Kim and I watched this week about a Ukrainian unit called Berlingo defending a railway line in north-eastern Ukraine near Kupiansk, a town we plan to revisit. It is called Ukraine: Enemy in the Woods.

Of 99 soldiers who set out on the rotation, 10 were killed and more than 60 seriously injured.

We also watched a touching documentary on Welt about three young men fighting in Bakhmut, the town that fell to the Russians last spring. Only one of them was to survive the year.

As we begin this trip I am painfully aware that we are all slaves to the conflicts we have known.

When I arrived in Sierra Leone I, unwisely, assumed the same conditions applied as in the Balkans. In Iraq I mistakenly behaved as I had in Afghanistan.

But every war has it’s own dynamic, development and especially technological advances.

I may have navigated street violence, shoot-outs, jihadis with suicide belts, and artillery. But I was unprepared for IEDs (improvised explosive devices) in Afghanistan. And we are unprepared for drones and glide bombs in Ukraine.

There are two especially nasty recent inventions of note. One is a newly-modified Russian glide bomb that can deliver a tonne or more of high explosive into the heart of a city.

The other is what is known as first-person-view (FPV) drones. (If you would like a short primer on the use of drones in Ukraine click here.)

Needless to say we will be being both cautious and circumspect in our decision-making over the next several days.

Click here for Part 2