Rivers on a different Ukraine - a first hand on the ground reflection

By Ray Rivers

January 22, 2022

BURLINGTON, ON

A number of years ago Ray Rivers was visiting Ukraine to get a better sense of a country to which he was culturally attached.  At the time we arranged for him to meet with Canadian troops who were training a Ukrainian army unit.

I visited Ukraine a couple of times after the Russian invasion in 2014.  The second time, in 2017, my wife and I volunteered to teach in their school system for about a month.  We were part of a multinational effort, called Go Camp, involving some 1100 volunteers from 75 countries to share our language and culture with young Ukrainian students.

I taught some French, music and drama, and before I left gifted my guitar to a promising young music student.  Burlington’s MP (Hon) Karina Gould’s office had passed along some Canadian lapel flag pins which were well received by the students.  We were billeted by the parents and literally became part of their families, struggling with the language but sharing meals and laughs and stories of who we are.

We asked, at every appropriate occasion, about the situation in the country.  What did they think about the war and Ukraine’s future relationship with Russia?  They were reluctant to open up but mostly they said they didn’t know.  They didn’t understand what Putin wanted and why he was attacking their country.  And they really didn’t want to talk about the conflict, especially those who had fled from the war zone in the Russian occupied Donbas.

It was as if they were ashamed and embarrassed – unsure if they were to blame in some small way – perhaps their nation had moved too quickly to expand its horizons, promote a market economy, embrace democracy and adopt other western ideals.  Almost like a battered spouse or victim of bullying would react, they couldn’t wait for the topic to change.  It hurt too much to talk about it.

Not everyone was happy with their government, their leaders and all the corruption that had been going on.  Still, nobody said that they’d rather be Russian, even if the government pensions were higher there, as we were told by one woman, a retired school principal now cleaning classrooms to supplement her retirement income.  And there were a number of bright young people hoping for a visa to come to Canada to live, and, more often than not, being rejected.

There is still a good deal of attachment to Russia – a doctor who worked weekdays at a hospital in Moscow and came home on the weekends – a young woman completing her advanced degree in petroleum engineering at a Moscow technical college.  It is more difficult for them to commute now since no flights are allowed between the two nations.  And while many people still use the Russian language, it’s more common among the older crowd who are used to saying ‘Da’ instead of ‘Tak’ for yes, but nobody seems to mind.

Ukraine citizens protesting the high levels of corruption in their country.

Ukrainians thought they knew what they wanted when they declared their independence along with those other Soviet republics and satellites when the USSR disintegrated.  Ukraine was so eager on being a model of peacefulness that it gave up its nuclear arsenal, the third largest in the world.  In return the US, UK and Russia signed the Budapest Memorandum which guaranteed Ukraine’s territorial integrity.

Or so they thought.  But when Russia invaded and annexed Crimea, the other signatories just shrugged their shoulders.  President Obama, who’d been given a Nobel peace prize, was quick off the mark to say what he wouldn’t do.   He wouldn’t try to stop Russia – wouldn’t send defensive weapons to help Ukraine.  And with that he gave license and argument for every wanna-be nuclear power – the only way to guarantee your defence is with a nuke in your backyard.

When it comes to defence, good fences make good neighbours.  And if your neighbour is a bully then you needed to be ready for him/her.  So Ukraine called on its wannabe European partners, and potential future NATO allies, for help.   Canada, with the world’s second largest Ukrainian diaspora, sent a couple hundred military trainers, gave the country some night vision goggles and a couple hundred million dollars in development assistance.

Mr. Trudeau says he’s only thinking of sending over what Kyiv really wants, some high tech defensive weapons that could help stop Russia’s vast assembly of tanks and planes.  Perhaps he alone understands Mr. Putin’s mind allowing the argument… that a poorly armed Ukraine will better deter a Russian invasion than one appropriately outfitted with high tech armament to fight off an invasion.

Foreign Minister Melanie Joly meets Canadian soldiers. There are currently about 200 Canadian Armed Forces members in Ukraine as part of an international training mission to help improve Ukrainian soldiers’ combat skills.

My publisher had organized for me to visit the military base where Canadian instructors are training Ukrainian soldiers.  There was not much joy around.  This is, after all, a conflict with no apparent end in sight and a lot of death and suffering in the meantime.  Putin has the overwhelming upper hand.  We were told that taking pictures of the snipers training was forbidden since, with Russian agents still active, that could make the recruits targets.

Known as Kievan Rus or Ruthenia, Ukraine was the largest country in Europe in the 11th century.  But the invaders over all the intervening years have done their best to create one jigsaw puzzle or another.  Mongols, Ottoman Turks, Swedes, Polish, Lithuanians, Austro-Hungarians, and the Russians all have had a crack at occupying Ukraine – or some part of it.  One of the current day ironies is that it was Ukrainian migrants who first left Kyiv to found Moscow and Russia.

Putin has been pretty clear about what he’d like – a return to the glorious days of the Soviet Union, presumably pre-Afghanistan invasion.  Humiliated by the break up of the USSR, he is determined to wreak a kind of vengeance by humiliating the USA, breaking up the EU and destroying NATO.  He wants to be back in the USSR.  And he wants to take Ukraine, formerly one of the most populous and productive republics in the union, with him.

Russia has twice as many troops in uniform (280,000) as Ukraine, and a very modernized military machine, including nuclear weapons.  But what would be the point of nuking the heck out of Ukraine if it is be included the new USSR?  And though Ukraine is out-soldiered and out-gunned, it has developed a civil defence organization numbering some 300,000.  So while a blitz invasion might get Russia well into the heart of Ukraine it’ll have trouble holding onto it.

The folks we met while over there understood that Russia might invade their homeland, but despite all the pessimism they were resolved that that would not be the end of it. According to a recent survey up to a third of the population of 44 million are prepared to pick up a firearm and join the fight for their country.

Perhaps what I took for traces of sadness in their smiles was just plain tiredness – tired of just another autocrat trying to crush their new-found freedom.  Tired of conflict.  But then again, perhaps they also understand that this conflict is bigger than Ukraine.  Because on the other side of the world President Xi is preparing his own invasion plans to put an end to another democracy, this time on the island of Taiwan.

Ray Rivers, a Gazette Contributing Editor,  writes regularly applying his more than 25 years as a federal bureaucrat to his thinking.  Rivers was once a candidate for provincial office in Burlington.  He was the founder of the Burlington citizen committee on sustainability at a time when climate warming was a hotly debated subject.   Ray has a post graduate degree in economics that he earned at the University of Ottawa.  Tweet @rayzrivers

 

 

Background links

Go Camp –    What Does Putin Want –      Putin

Ukraine History –    Budapest Memorandum

 US Naive –     Trudeau Waffles –    More Waffle

Biden Must Stand Up

 

 

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2 comments to Rivers on a different Ukraine – a first hand on the ground reflection

  • Alfred

    Where would these roughly 15 million brave men and women get their guns from, to defend themselves with? Do they grow in the ground like corn stalks. Or is our Czar Trudeau going to provide the weapons of freedom taken from the good people of Canada who he is attempting to confiscate them from? A similar situation appears to be occuring here in Canada, while the Ukraine borders Russia( not exactly a super power) Remember the Russians leaving Afganistan with their tails between their legs. Canada borders the mighty USA. With all the natural resouces and fresh water that Canada has to offer not, to mention the land mass. Would it not be in the best interest and security of the USA. To annex, invade or just take over Canada? Trudeau to prevent this possible scenario will take Canadians guns away and buy guns for the Ukranians. What am I missing.

  • Very interesting and informative. During my college teaching years I had several Ukrainian students and some Russians. No love lost, but they got along politely. One Ukrainian student, a Ph.D. candidate, had been severely crippled in a car accident in the U.S. She routinely returned to Kyiv for adjustment to the complex, internal metal framework holding her spine together. She felt the treatment there was better, and certainly less costly.

    The Russians have a narrow window for invasion; only when the ground is frozen hard will they be able to move their heavy equipment and vehicles. But who knows that better than the Russians? This will likely go on for a long time in one form or another, especially if Russia plays the energy supply card.