The boys of Poltava wanted me to pass a message on to Ukrainians in North America. They are disappointed, dismayed and disgusted with the present government in Ukraine.
We sat outside a pub (or “pab,” as they say in Ukraine) at the foot of Shevchenko Boulevard, next to the pedestal of what used to hold the Lenin monument. The base is painted in blue and yellow, and the name “Lenin” is fading from the marble. It doesn’t look like the Communist Party is about to restore it. The young men, in their 30s, had come into Kyiv for the day. One of them is an artist who spent the day painting a cityscape featuring the Besarabsky Rynok intersection.
They could have been my sons. Each was eager to bare his soul about the situation in Ukraine. They have friends at the front. Originally, so many were eager to join the army, to save Ukraine. But now, some of these soldiers tell them not to enlist. “You will be sitting in the trenches, wasting your time,” they say. They’re upset that the government is not supporting the war.
They say people have to supply their own equipment and weapons, that the population volunteers to feed the soldiers. From their friends in the field, they hear that the soldiers feel abandoned both in battle and upon their return. The returning soldiers have to fight the stubborn bureaucracy for their documentation, health care and any support at all. The boys repeat over and over that there is little, if any, government support of the war defending Ukraine. And this has been going on from the beginning of the Russian invasion. They ask: What is going on?
Are all the ones at the top making big money on this? Why don’t they care? Who is manipulating everything? No wonder Pravyi Sektor is gaining supporters. The boys understand that Pravyi Sektor is too radical, and who knows which oligarch is funding it (because it seems that all parties and movements have someone manipulating each, they note). But people are desperate for change.
As we sat on a peaceful Kyiv street, enjoying Ukrainian beer, the war was so close and yet so far.