The high price of waiting
Lawmakers in Kyiv and D.C. dithered. Now Ukraine faces its most perilous moment since the war’s first weeks.
A man crosses a walkway on the Pavlograd Bridge toward Staryi Saltiv, a town in northeastern Ukraine. Early in the war, Ukrainian troops destroyed the bridge over the Siverskyi Donets River to slow the advance of Russian forces. After the Russians retreated, the walkway was installed to help people reach the town. (c. Martin Kuz)
Weekends in late spring and summer in northeastern Ukraine once transformed Staryi Saltiv from tranquil rural enclave to buzzing tourist hotspot. Nestled on the banks of an enormous reservoir along the Siverskyi Donets River, the town drew people from the Kharkiv and Sumy regions and over the border in Russia looking for a quick getaway.
Those who drove from villages east of the river in Ukraine and Russia typically followed a route that crossed the Pavlograd Bridge into Staryi Saltiv. The arrival of visitors on holiday weekends could triple or quadruple the local population of 3,300 as Ukrainians and Russians mingled in easy, ordinary harmony.
Moscow’s invasion in February 2022 brought an abrupt end to all of that — the cross-cultural goodwill, the town’s tourism business and the bridge. Ukrainian troops blew up a section of the span early in the war to slow the advance of enemy forces, who occupied Staryi Saltiv for 10 weeks before retreating. Later that year, Ukraine’s army pushed out the Russians from nearly the entire Kharkiv region, liberating its eastern third with a surprise counteroffensive.
Workers soon installed a metal walkway to connect the bridge’s broken sections, enabling Ukrainians who lived on the river’s eastern flank to avoid a long detour to reach Staryi Saltiv. They parked cars near the missing segment on their side and crossed over on foot to obtain food, water, fuel and other essentials. Or they caught a ride with taxis, shuttle buses, friends or relatives for the 30-mile trip to Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, to pick up other necessities: medications, pension checks, supplies for rebuilding damaged homes.
The pedestrian bridge provided a lifeline for residents from villages and towns pulverized during the seven-month Russian occupation, including Vovchansk, a city 3 miles from Russia where 17,000 people lived before the war. On a gray afternoon in late winter last year, I met Genadiy Kovalenko as he lugged a can of gas back to his small sedan on the bridge’s eastern side. The retired welder, who had driven 15 miles from his home, told me Vovchansk continued to absorb daily shelling as Russian forces across the border fired at Ukrainian military positions.
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Genadiy Kovalenko, a resident of Vovchansk, walked ahead of a friend as they carried fuel across the footbridge from Staryi Saltiv toward his car. (c. Martin Kuz)
“The psychology of every day is hard,” he said. Only 2,500 residents remained in the city at that point; most had evacuated during the occupation. His hand traced an arc to mimic the trajectory of artillery and mortar shells. “You hear the bombing. It is not normal to live this way.”
In the past week, Vovchansk’s population has plunged below 300 as people flee a renewed Russian offensive in the region that has further gutted the city. A woman who escaped after surviving in a basement for six days told The New York Times that “there is not a single house on our street anymore — all the houses have burned out, including those on the neighboring street.”
The Russian incursion ignited speculation among Western officials about its purpose. The advance could represent a limited effort to establish a “security zone” in northern Kharkiv to shield southern Russia from cross-border attacks; the start of a larger campaign to capture the city of Kharkiv and/or a portion of the Sumy region; a ploy to force Ukraine to redirect personnel from elsewhere along the 600-mile front line, softening its defenses in other areas; or all of the above.
The uncertainty about Moscow’s intentions contrasts with the clear reasons behind Ukraine’s vulnerability. Ukrainian lawmakers waited much too long to expand the draft to help replenish the army’s exhausted ranks, and U.S. lawmakers waited much too long to send a new military aid package to Ukraine. The delays allowed Russia to exploit advantages in troop strength and munitions while adapting its tactics, resulting in the most perilous moment for Ukraine since the war’s first weeks.
The dithering of Ukrainian and American elected officials illustrates a myopic fixation on petty politics in Kyiv and D.C. and an inexcusable tendency to view the day-to-day misery of people like Genadiy as abstract. None of them should need reminding that the struggle of Ukrainians to survive Russia’s onslaught embodies the much larger fight for democracy in a world marching ever more toward authoritarianism.
Lulled by the unexpected success of Ukraine’s military in the invasion’s first year, and reassured by the West’s relatively cohesive support until cracks emerged last summer, lawmakers in both capitals lost sight of what they must never forget: Now as in centuries past, Russia seeks to break and colonize Ukraine.
Nikolai Breslavskiy (left) and his wife, Olena (second from right), traveled from Vovchansk with their daughter (right) and granddaughter to pick up groceries in Staryi Saltiv. (c. Martin Kuz)
The residents of Vovchansk whom I encountered on the Pavlograd Bridge invoked that history as they tried to endure the present. After talking with Genadiy, I met Olena and Nikolai Breslavskiy, who had traveled to Staryi Saltiv with their daughter and granddaughter to stock up on groceries. They dreaded returning to Vovchansk knowing that the concussive blasts of Russian shelling awaited them.
“They are trying to kill Ukraine again and claim we don’t exist,” Olena said. Nikolai’s two grandfathers had perished in the Soviet gulag after World War II. “Why do we deserve this?”
We talked a few more minutes before the family began loading their car. As they prepared to depart, Nikolai turned in the driver’s seat and waved, then started down the bridge. I wondered what would become of them.
Etc.
— The Kyiv Independent interviewed the photographer whose haunting images from inside the Azovstal steel plant during the Russian siege of Mariupol captured the weary defiance of the Ukrainian troops trapped there. As the article mentions, Russia is still holding hundreds of the soldiers as prisoners of war.
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— I’ll return with a new installment of Reporting on Ukraine in early June after a short break. Thanks for reading!