We moved to Ukraine in 2011 before Ukraine grabbed the world's attention. Before the Maidan Revolution. Before former president, Viktor Yanukovich fled the country to Russia. Before Russian forces moved in annexed Crimea. Before Russians started paying people to come into the Donbas and carryout what they falsely labeled as a civil war in Ukraine. And long before the full scale invasion of 2022, when Ukraine surprised the world by holding off the world’s second most powerful army.
I recently met a lady in the Czech Republic who was amazed at the resilience that Ukraine has shown as they are standing up to a much larger army. She noted that the Czech people have had professional armies to defend them … but those armies have never done a thing. She was referring mostly WWII and the Czech Revolution in 1958 that was put down with little resistance by the Soviets. Her perspective piqued my curiosity and we ended up speaking for quite a while. Even after the conversation was over, I kept mulling some of the questions that she raised. What were the circumstances that led to Ukraine defying almost all expectations and not only survive the first year of war, but actually earn the respect and admiration of many across the globe?
A big piece of this puzzle is Ukraine’s army. Ukraine’s army has changed a lot in the past 12 years, and I’ve been able to see some of that transition through our friend, Petro.
In 2012, Petro was 18, out of trade school and our friend Doug had just helped him find a job, when Petro received his conscription documents. I ended up being the one who had to race against the clock to get Petro to the places he needed to be so that he could file documents to secure his job, while he spent a year as a conscript in the Ukrainian army. I wrote about that experience 12 years ago, because it had such an impact on me.
After Petro completed his basic training, he invited us to attend his commencement ceremony. The ceremony consisted of a few boring speeches, then Petro and his fellow conscripts did some marches for the audience. The marches were far from impressive.
But the most striking thing that Janna and I saw that day was how Petro and his best friend handled their weapons. When we arrived, they ran up to us and stood there with pride, showing off their uniforms and their automatic guns. They immediately asked us to take a picture. I cringed as they struck poses because Petro pointed his gun straight at his best friends face. Petro wasn’t trying to be silly, he was just holding the gun in the way that seemed to him to look the most professional, and never gave a thought to where the gun was actually pointing. His best friend just grinned, utterly clueless. Part of me wanted to yell at them to be careful with their weapons, but I decided to snap the picture first, as proof of how poorly trained they were.
We learned that this was the first time they had been around guns. They completed basic training without touching a weapon of any kind, or without learning the most basic rule of handling them: Never, never, ever, point your gun at another person … especially your best friend.
The next thing Petro did was take a picture with his girlfriend … and he pointed the gun at her as well. I am certain that the army hadn't handed out loaded weapons to these guys ... but I grew up on stories of what happened when someone thought that a gun was unloaded and they stopped being careful and killed a loved one.
That day, I remember thinking, “I’m really glad that Ukraine isn’t depending on these kids.”
Unfortunately, I can't find any of those pictures.
Petro served his year in the military. Doug would go visit him as often as he could. Petro would always request that Doug bring food, and tea, and so many other basic things because they weren’t getting that stuff in the army. Petro told Doug that he crave flavor … anything that actually tasted like something.
For Petro, and most other young men, conscription meant a year of little more than indentured servitude. His commanding officers would find wealthy people who needed a crew of workers and rent out the unit for whatever needed to be done. The officer would pocket the funds and the men had no choice but to work because if they refused they could be sent to prison. Petro’s year of conscription was terrible.
That was Ukraine’s army 10 years ago.
Petro served his time, and got out. He wasn’t given his job back, even though the company was supposed to be legally obligated to hire him back. He ended up bouncing from job to job where he wasn’t paid or was over worked, and then not paid everything that was due him. The entire episode made me hate Ukraine’s army because it had seemed to ruin Petro’s life.
Because I knew that this was the state of Ukraine’s army, it wasn’t a huge surprise that in 2014, Ukraine put up no defense of Ukriane when the Russian’s moved in. The situation was was made even more believable by the fact that Ukraine’s head of state just disappeared with a few other top officials and the government had to scramble to figure out how to function. While they were doing this, the Russians carried out what many believed to be a operation that had been in planning for a long time. They took over the territory without firing a shot.
At that time, there were intelligence reports that the Russian army would try to move in on Ukraine, and in what would be echoed 8 years later, many speculated that if they decided to march on Kyiv, they would take over the capital city in about three day. We had family and friends everyday telling us that we needed to get out of Ukraine. Talking about it all these years later, many of my friends and I feel that this prediction eight years ago would most likely have proven accurate.
When Russian backed forces started moving on the Donbass in 2014, though, Ukraine mounted resistance. At that time, Petro was called back into the army. Doug visited Petro right after he had been assigned to a unit, but before he had been sent into action. Doug told us that there seemed to be no organization, basically no equipment, but plenty of drinking all over the camp.
This was the army that was supposed to stand up against the forces in the Donbas that were paid and armed by Russia. The stories that we heard from Petro in those early days were really disheartening. The Ukrainians were poorly organized and equipped and the fighting was fierce.
It was easy to be pessimistic.
But Ukriane resisted. During the first years of the conflict, Russia was providing very serious weaponry, including the missiles that took down MH17. Ukraine’s allies at the time, were only providing Ukraine with non-lethal aid. Over the next eight years, many allies slowly increased the amount of support that they provided Ukraine in light of Russia’s blatant flaunting of international law. But Ukraine was always the underdog.
And yet Ukraine stood. Granted, they weren’t facing the Russian army, just Russian paid fighters.
I’m convinced that this eight years of fighting in the Donbas fundamentally changed Ukraine’s army. It fundamentally changed the entire country of Ukraine. Ukraine lost over 10,000 people during the "war before the war." Ukrainians saw the way that Russian media were dehumanizing them. They saw how Russia was coldly trying to bring physical and financial ruin to Ukraine. The whole conflict started with a revolution in Ukraine that was started by a group of students standing on the Maidan and protesting Yanukovich’s decision to take them farther from he EU. Those students wanted to follow the West’s path of democracy and the rule of law. During the Revolution, and over the following eight years of Russian aggression, the rest of the country has been convinced of the same thing. As of last July, 90% of Ukrainians would vote to join the EU, whereas back in 2013 that number wasn't only about 50%.
During Petro’s time in the Donbas he changed from being a Ukrainian conscript into a proper soldier. This is what happened to Ukraine’s army. They had to improve or die. They were outgunned, so they had to learn quickly and become innovative while fighting a larger force that was using guerrilla tactics on their own land.
Petro served in the military for a few years before he was released. Some contacts in Poland helped him and his wife, Alina, find work there. Petro and Alina were in Poland for several years. They were building a good life for themselves. They had a baby girl.
Then on February 24th, 2022, Petro woke up to the news that Russia had launched a massive invasion of Ukraine. Petro could have stayed in Poland. I have quite a few friends who chose to stay in Poland and help out when and where they can. But Petro decided to leave his wife and daughter in Poland, return to Ukraine and join the army. He was one of 66,200 Ukrainians who did that in the first days of the war.
I remember seeing a picture of him on Facebook early on. He looked like a real soldier. I don’t know all that Petro has been involved in over the past year. I know that he helped put our fires at the end of summer, when Russian forces were launching incendiary rounds into Ukraine’s fields in order to destroy last years harvest.
It is clear from the pictures of Petro that his unit has been outfitted, but he has requested that Doug help gather different types of gear and food, as well as raise funds for a Jeep for his unit. Ukraine is currently full of SUVs that have been painted in camo for different units. The main army is doing what it can, but in the past year the size of the army has increased many times over. Ukraine currently has one of the largest standing armies in the world. Any government would be struggling to keep up. This is where Ukraine’s civil society has stepped up in huge ways to fill the gap.
Ukraine is still outgunned. In spite of the hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians who have volunteered to defend their home, the Russian forces still have the upper hand in numbers and weapons.
But there are thousands of reasons that I believe that Ukraine will win this war.
Most of them look a lot like Petro.
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