A joyful city devastated

Shadow on a fountain in Kharkiv, 2011

It was a bewildering sight, unique in my experience of business trips, to go for a walk from my hotel the morning after my arrival and be confronted by a giant statue of the Russian revolutionary, Lenin. All the stranger as this was 2011, over two decades after the Berlin Wall fell and, in principle, the Soviet empire collapsed.

Lenin pointing the way to the toilets

I was in Kharkiv, sadly very much in the news these days, as a city under attack by Russian forces in Ukraine.

My apologies: I understand that Mr Putin has decided the word ‘attack’ is inappropriate and that what’s going on is a special operation. Perhaps I should say that Kharkiv, like most of the main cities in Ukraine, is being specially operated on. And like most operations, it’s not much fun.

We also need to be clear that this is no war. It just happens to involve a bunch of soldiers firing on each other. With a lot of civilians joining in on the Ukrainian side. And, strangely like a war, a great many civilians are also being killed or injured.

Kharkiv is only 20 kilometres from the Russian border. Indeed, when I set out to travel there, I thought I was going to Kharkov. It turns out that this is the Russian version of the name. It’s a primarily Russian-speaking city, but I was struck by how very Ukrainian the people I met seemed to feel. One colleague told me that she had learned Ukrainian and wanted to improve her mastery of the language, since she was, after all, Ukrainian, wasn’t she?

Tymoshenko and Yanukovych
Sworn enemies, both economical with the truth

2011 was a time when Ukrainian politics were dominated by the pro-Russian Viktor Yanukovych and the pro-European Yulia Tymoshenko, she of the tightly-braided hair. One of the most interesting people I met in Kharkiv later gave me a thumbnail sketch of Ukrainian politics.

Tymoshenko was on trial, and I asked how the case was going.

“I don’t really follow it,” he said, “there are so many lies.”

“She’s accused of corruption?”

“Abuse of power,” he told me, “well, it is perfectly true.”

“But she denies it?”

“She says it is political.” He paused. “Well, that is also perfectly true.”

“So both sides are telling the truth?”

‘Yes, because they are both lying.”

Back to Lenin. I told a colleague I was a little surprised to see the statue still there.

“Did you see the right hand, pointing downwards?” he asked.

“Yes,” I told him.

“It points to the public toilets. So it’s useful.”

That was characteristic of the time I spent in the city. Everywhere I went, I met people who were warm, intelligent, good-humoured and humorous (the last two aren’t the same, but they go together extremely well). 

Not just hard work, but plenty of play too,
with my colleagues in Kharkiv

I wrote recently to the friend who told me about Tymoshenko and Yanukovich. 

“Where are you?” I asked, since I thought he might be in Poland. And, since I knew he was no longer with the same company, I added, “what are you doing?”

His reply was a lot starker than I expected.

“We are in Kharkiv, helping Ukrainian military that is defending our city.”

Another friend, who has mercifully been living in Western Europe for some time now, told me:

“My whole family, and my husband's family, my little one-and-a-half-year-old niece, are all in Kharkiv, the streets of which you walked when we were working together. 

“The city is under rocket fire, they are scared, they spend their days waiting for air raid sirens to go off which means they need to run down to the basement (they are on the 10th floor). My husband's family (his parents and sister with her kids) live in a house, not a block of flats, but close to the edge of the city. Since Saturday they don't have electricity, so we hardly have any contact with them. It is so scary, and so devastating. My beautiful city lies in ruins.”

She put up a photo of a school in Kharkiv, before and after a visit by the Russian military. ‘Devastated’ is clearly the word.

A Kharkiv school,
before and after the Russian ‘special operation’

Putin may have some legitimate grievances about the behaviour of the West towards Russia. Whatever grievances he has, ought to be discussed and, where possible, addressed. But he has absolutely no grievance – none whatsoever – that can begin to justify his behaviour towards Ukraine. 

Nothing can mitigate his guilt in waging war. Or waging a special operation, if you like. After all, who cares what you call it? The destruction is the same.

The other day in my local city, Valencia, I saw two women with placards for a demonstration. One said, “Stop Putin”. The other said, “No war”. I agree with both. But, unfortunately, I don’t see how they’re compatible with each other anymore.

I’m not usually in favour of war. But now I feel strongly that the Ukrainians are in a desperate fight against a far more powerful enemy, entirely illegitimate in his actions. Valencia is in Spain, and in the thirties the Spanish begged the free world to give them the weapons they needed to fight their war against a vicious autocrat. We failed to support them and they were crushed, leading to forty years of dictatorship.

This time let’s show we can rise to the challenge. Let’s pour the weapons in that Ukrainians need. And let them turn the special operation around.

So that the wonderful people I met back in 2011 can laugh again as they did then and enjoy the freedom they deeply deserve.