MOSCOW—The war in eastern Ukraine, which had cooled down over the past year, is reaching boiling point again. A 2020 ceasefire with Russian-backed militants has broken down. Soldiers on both sides are dying almost daily. Ukrainians are asking for an early, forceful move by President Biden, whom sources consider “Ukraine’s big friend.”
Ukraine has become caught in a broader conflict between the U.S. and Russia, which escalated this week. Russia recalled its ambassador from Washington, after Biden called Putin “a killer.”
The Ukraine war is the only hot conflict between Russia and the West in Europe, and the U.S. and the EU imposed sanctions after the outbreak of conflict in Eastern Ukraine and Russia’s annexation of Crimea.
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When tensions rise between Moscow and Washington, there is always a risk of escalation out in the trenches. The conflict is certainly bubbling up again now.
Galina Odnorog, a Mariupol-based volunteer, has been providing aid for Ukrainian military forces for seven years. “The truce was more or less solid during the pandemic but ever since President Volodymyr Zelensky shut down three pro-Russian TV channels, we’ve been waking up to the sound of artillery at all our military positions,” Odnorog told The Daily Beast. “Locals talk about Russia coming to take over the towns of Kherson and Mariupol, to provide water supplies for Crimea. I dream that Ukraine will join NATO as soon as possible, so we can sleep peacefully.”
As of now, there is no sign that Ukraine will become a NATO member. Others are relying on intervention from the U.S.
Anti-corruption activist Darya Kaleniuk is one of many who have been urging Biden to appoint a key official to deal with Ukraine going off the rails again. “We are expecting Washington to name the person to be dealing with Kyiv and appoint an Ambassador to Kyiv, finally,” Kaleniuk told The Daily Beast.
Kyiv has been without an ambassador since the early phases of the scandal that evolved into the first impeachment trial of President Trump, who fired the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch, in May 2019.
Before leaving the capital, the ambassador left an important message to local civil society leaders: “Courage is contagious,” she said.
Solving Ukraine’s domestic political and military problems will be a massive undertaking. Sniper and artillery fire attacks from Russian-backed positions on Ukrainian soldiers have been frequent. Last Friday, a sniper bullet hit Alexander Pekur, a 30-year-old Ukrainian soldier, killing him instantly.
Ukrainians know by now that it is impossible to end the war in Donbas without winning the war on corruption first. Kyiv hopes Washington can help them in this area, too. “The U.S. should be targeting with personal sanctions, including visa bans, all those who are implementing hybrid warfare in Ukraine,” Kaleniuk told The Daily Beast. “The head of the Constitutional Court, Oleksandr Tupitsky, is under investigation for criminal activity here. His wife has a company in Delaware. If the U.S. government wants to, it can find out more on Tupitsky’s activities in the West.”
Many prominent Ukrainians believe that the country’s only hope for peace is Washington. The country’s former president, Leonid Kravchuk, who leads Ukraine’s delegation in peace talks, is convinced that Washington will not leave Ukraine in the lurch. But Kravchuk would also like to see the White House represented at negotiations which are now being moderated by France and Germany. Kravchuk said the U.S. may formally join the talks next month.
“It is necessary to decide at the level of the President of the United States of America, whether it be the Vice President or the Secretary of State but someone must be officially present,” he said. “Because Russia has such a character trait: it never listens to those whom it does not fear, if we speak frankly,” Kravchuk told Ukrainian reporters.
Like many Ukrainians, Kaleniuk was happy to hear of Secretary of State Blinken’s words of support for Ukraine’s fight against corruption and its efforts to ward off Russian aggression. “The U.S. could appoint someone like Kurt Volker, an experienced person on Ukrainian affairs,” Kaleniuk suggested. Although Volker, the former U.S. Special Representative for Ukraine, had been implicated in the impeachment affair, his new roadmap to Ukraine has served as a wake up call on the urgency of the conflict and the need for American intervention.
“Russian ceasefire violations in Donbas have escalated in the past month even as peace talks have broken down. There are no serious negotiations ongoing to press Russia to end its aggression and restore peace and legitimate governance in Donetsk and Luhansk,” warned Volker, adding that “the U.S. must act quickly.”
Russian media have also been warning of a coming war with Ukraine. Any calls for NATO’s expansion around Russia’s borders irritate Moscow. One pro-Kremlin news agency, RIA FAN, published a front-page article with an explosive headline that read: “‘A reliable NATO’s shoulder: how the West provokes Ukraine for a war with Russia.” It suggested that Biden wants to pull Russia into a broader war with Ukraine in order to weaken its position in the Arctic and Middle East. Russian reporters have predicted an escalation.
In the war zone, pandemic-related travel restrictions have made an already nightmarish life even harder. People living in the territories controlled by Russian-backed militants cannot travel between territories controlled by Ukraine. All seven checkpoints, which registered about 40,000 travelers a day before the pandemic, have been shut down.
Natalia Veselova escaped from Donetsk to Kyiv in the early days of the war and served in Ukraine’s Parliament. Today Veselova is calling for Ukrainian authorities to firmly articulate a strategy for ending the war, including through outreach to those in separatist territories.
“If we want to bring people from the occupied territories back, we have to make it clear that these people are welcome here,” Veselova told The Daily Beast. But for now, she said, the overwhelming feeling is that there is a looming, urgent threat that only the United States can halt, pushing all long-term plans aside.
“We have a feeling that Russia is like a beast, waiting for a moment to attack,” Veselova said. “We need Biden to stop the beast.”
