Recent Wall Street Journal Piece Urges NATO To Defend L'viv From Russia's Military

        

L'viv

I started writing this a few days ago, after first running into this Op/Ed piece published in Wall Street a few weeks ago. However, L'viv was shelled this weekend. As of right now, it seems to be a message by Russian forces that nowhere in Ukraine is safe from the war. So I just wanted to mention that, since in the rest of the writing (which again, was written over the past few days, before the L'viv attacks, western Ukraine had largely been spared the horrors of war. 

The Russian invasion of Ukraine has felt more real to me in certain ways than other wars. Some might suggest that this is because I a citizen of a European nation. That is true. Perhaps other wars felt far away, in regions I have never come close to in the Middle East or Africa or Asia, or off the coast of South America. Even the war following the breakup of the former Yugoslavia did not feel quite this close, despite that being on the European continent. Mostly, it is because Ukraine feels much closer in certain ways. As mentioned earlier, I am a dual citizen of both the United States and France, the latter obviously being a European nation. Yet, the other major background I have is Ukrainian. So there is that. Also, it just happened that my girlfriend, my son, and I visited Ukraine less than three years ago. 

A little back story: my girlfriend and I met in 2012. My girlfriend is Polish, and specifically, she is from the rural, southeastern region of Bieszczady, right along the Ukrainian border. We finally decided to go to Poland together to visit her small hometown. The first time that we went there together was in June of 2013. I had wanted to cross the border into Ukraine, but we never did. Then the second time, in 2019, my son came along with us. This time, I was a bit more insistent that we should visit Ukraine, and we finally did. 

We eventually took a day tour to L'viv, which is considered Ukraine's cultural capital. I had been doing some research on it for years, ever since hoping to pay it a visit in 2013. There were organized day tours leaving right from her hometown to L'viv daily during the summer, and they were not too expensive, somewhere between 120 to 150 zloty per person, or about $30 US to $40 US at the time, as I recall. When we went back to her hometown in 2019, this time with my son, I was absolutely committed to pay a visit to L'viv. 

Sure enough, this we finally did on August 21st. We would have to be ready to be on the bus by around 5:30 in the morning or so. We were the first people on the bus, although it would actually get quite crowded before long. It left very early, because it was apparently not uncommon for it to be around three hours to cross the border, and an additional three hours on the way back. It might be less, but they told us we had to be ready for it to be at least that long. When we got to the border, all questions that I had were answered in a stark manner.

Technically, I believe that Ukraine was a country at war at that point, already. There had been tensions with Russia in 2014, although that had been short lived, and a much smaller scale war, hardly making the screaming headlines that the current war has done. Most of the fighting were in predominantly Russian-speaking provinces in the eastern part of the country, while we were crossing on just about the western extremity. Yet, there were soldiers carrying assault rifles and wearing full camouflage walking about. The Polish border troops were armed, as well. It was unlike any border crossing that I had ever experienced before. When we got through, maybe after an hour and a half or so, we saw a sort of pedestrian bridge with armed soldiers watching us and all travelers on the road. Later in the day, I would get a reminder of this strong military presence, as I saw more uniformed soldiers waking around in L'viv than any major city that I can remember seeing before, anywhere. It was not for a military parade, or anything. It was just a normal day. 

Yes, it was a normal day in L'viv that day. And other than all of the people in camouflage who were everywhere, seemingly, it was easy to forget that Ukraine was, technically, still a country engaged in a war. Don't get me wrong: the war was not as "hot" as it is right at the moment. Russia had taken Crimea just a few years earlier, true. But Russia had not outright invaded the nation, like it did earlier this year. Also, there was separatist activity in the eastern provinces of the country. But in western Ukraine - and remember, L'viv is the largest major city in western Ukraine - you hardly saw any real reminders of all of this. The one thing that I can specifically remember seeing in the city that served as a real reminder of the recent tensions was Putin's face on toilet paper that was being sold as a tourist novelty. My girlfriend still regrets not having gotten a roll even to this day. 

One thing surprised me about our visit, and that was how hot it is. The impression that I had of Ukraine, as well as of Russia and Belarus, is that they are cold weather country. You almost cannot think of those countries without thinking of how brutally cold it gets there in the winter. While that is true, this was August. And frankly, it must have been either the hottest, or at least one of the hottest days of the year there. It was oppressively hot and humid, and the sunshine was relentless. In other words, it was not at all what I had expected, and sometimes made the visit a little more challenging, especially when our water supply began to grow a bit low for comfort.

The city of L'viv is beautiful. We visited the old Lychakiv Cemetery, where a lot of Polish citizens from the days of Polish rule there are buried, as well as the Armenian Cathedral, an old synagogue. In the old town, there were beautiful, narrow cobblestone streets with sidewalk cafes, much like so many other European cities. We visited the busy, and on that day sun-bathed Rynok Square, which seemed like a tourist mecca for the city. But the absolute centerpiece in L'viv is the Opera house, which is modeled on the Palais Garnier, which also known as Opéra Garnier, in Paris. There were beautiful fountains in front. It was far and away the busiest and most instantly recognizable symbol of the city, and it's image was featured on most of the touristy things there, such as the magnets and postcards that were available. 

As mentioned earlier, most of the time spent in the city was guided, particularly the Lychakiv Cemetery, Armenian Cathedral, an old synagogue (the name of which escapes me) and the Opera house, which was at least as beautiful inside as out. However, we did get some free time. We ate, and we went to a coffee shop, where my girlfriend got some coffee. We got some chocolates, which is also a specialty for the city. It had charm, did L'viv. Yet, it was not nearly as built up as a tourist trap as other European cities we had been to.

On that day, we enjoyed ourselves. Again, it was surprisingly sunny and hot, almost uncomfortably so. But it had been a good day, and I felt pleased to have gone. Also, my assumption was that maybe we would be going back in the not so distant future. I would be up for it, anyway. But who could have known then that Ukraine would be the site of Europe's biggest war since World War II at that time? 

Now, I am glad that I made such a point of going to L'viv, of crossing into Ukraine. Who knows when, or even if, the opportunity to visit the country will happen again?

My girlfriend and her family had not been to Ukraine, with one exception. There was some bad blood between Poles and Ukrainians, with many older people outright remembering raids by the UPA (the Ukrainian Insurgent Army) into the region where she lives, including her village specifically. Her parents outright remember these raids. Men had been rounded up and killed in a number of Polish towns, and as I understand it, some buildings in her home town were destroyed, burned. The town of Volhynia (now in Ukraine) was hit particularly hard, as 600 people were killed, and the entire village burned to the ground. All of this was pretty much new to me the first time that we went to Poland, when she revealed much of this, and how much the people there remember these episodes, which took place during the late years of World War II, and the immediate years after that conflict had ended. This is an episode that many westerners, myself included, really are not as familiar with as we should be. But it obviously stirred bad blood between Ukrainians and Poles, who already had centuries of bad blood between them. Those feelings did not simply go away, and they continue to exist right to this day. 

This perhaps also explains why the Polish people who went on the tour with us were given a Polish-themed tour of L'viv. That might not seem to make sense at first, given that L'viv is a city in a foreign country, Ukraine. But remember, Poland was split up between Nazi Germany the the Soviet Union during World War II. After the Russians liberated these regions of eastern and central Europe, as everyone knows, they pretty much stayed and took over. A little more on that in a moment. But the point is, the Soviet Union essentially just kept eastern Poland, and incorporated it into Ukraine. Poland was given added territory to the west, in regions formerly belonging to Germany. It is a bit complicated, but in short, the Soviets added territory to Ukraine, which was then a part of the Soviet Union, but is now an independent country unto it's own, although Russia is contesting it presently with this war. Meanwhile, Poland lost this territory, but gained other territory at the expense of a defeated Germany. 

Another country that many Polish people - and people throughout eastern Europe more generally - have a bad history with, and a fear and suspicion of, is Russia, of course. Look how ready many eastern Europeans have seemed to get up in arms over Putin and this Russian invasion. My girlfriend had spoken occasionally about the possibility that Russia would invade Poland, an idea that seemed crazy to me at the time. It seems a little less crazy to me now, but only a little. I still feel that Putin is more coldly calculating than outright crazy, or anything like that. She responds that I just don't know. True. But I also asked her if she thought that the invasion of Ukraine was going as well as Putin and many Russians - as well as many of us around the world - had expected. When she answered no, then I asked her why she thought that he was ready to take on Poland, a NATO and EU country, next? President Zelensky is a very admirable man, and I agree with most of what he says. But he has kept warning the West that this war will soon spread to other countries neighboring Ukraine, including a number of EU countries. He even suggested that Russia would not stop until they reached East Berlin. But as much as I admire him, that was something that seems far-fetched. Those days are over, and Putin would have to go through several NATO and EU countries, while also cutting one (Germany, specifically), in half. Again, given how many problems that Russia has experienced so far in Ukraine alone makes that seem a bit unrealistic, frankly. 

Getting back to L'viv, I suspect that my girlfriend and her mom are happy that we went to L'viv for the visit. Their sympathies, as with most of the world, are very much with the Ukrainian cause. I also believe that the trip helped them to recognize that maybe Ukrainians and Poles have more in common than they previously had suspected. Indeed, the city of L'viv is a beautiful gem of a city. Maybe it felt a bit more run down, and certainly far less taken over by a tourist trap industry, than other European cities. But this actually gave it a bit of charm in and of itself, as well. On that surprisingly hot day, everything there seemed peaceful. The possibility that L'viv, or Ukraine itself, would soon enough be invaded and would see the ravages of war visited upon their land felt like a remote possibility.

Yet, L'viv itself has largely been spared the war, far more than almost every other major city in Ukraine. It seems that in the past week or so, there are a ton of news reporters who are now headquartered in L'viv, reporting on the war from there, the city in Ukraine that still has not quite been touched too much by the war. The very fact that it is a bit more peaceful there, however, seems to be grounds for some people to try and utilize it as the new central city for the western part of what they already seem to assume will be a divided Ukraine. 

In this recent piece (published earlier this month) in the Wall Street Journal by Daniel Henniger, he advocates for the city of L'viv to become more than just the cultural capital of Ukraine, but a de facto central city for a new, more westernized Ukraine, which he presumes will be split up into two countries - at least two countries. The West had better hurry, he urges, because so far, L'viv has not been hit particularly hard by the war. Before it is leveled like Mariupol or Kharkiv, they had better step in and save it, then make it a base of operations. That would make L'viv feel almost like a 21st century version of Cold War Berlin, a city that became a strategic center of that conflict, complete with a wall that divided the two sections of the city like a physical scar. That is not to say that L'viv would be similarly divided. But that is also not to say that it would necessarily be in the best interests of L'viv to be such a city, either. In fact, that whole strategy of pulling one side closer to "us" and letting Russia have their side is what got us into trouble, and near the brink of a nuclear war, back in the days of the Cold War. It also smacks too much of the divide and conquer strategy that Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union agreed to in their infamous non-aggression pact, which gave Germany the de facto green light to invade Poland, which of course in turn started the European part of World War II. 

So I am not sure that I agree with this Op/Ed piece, frankly. In fact, my suspicion is that such thinking, this blind rush to try and grab whatever part of the country we can get and pull it over to our side of a new Cold War, is what led to this current conflict to begin with. And it would be a tragedy if such a beautiful city became little more than the rope in some political game of tug of war, played on an international level. 

Take a look at this piece, and see for yourself what this guy seems to be arguing. It feels to me that this kind of blind rush to grab what we can is, in fact, another mirror of Putin's own grab of Ukraine, which I still sometimes - hell, often, if I am being honest - feels like a response to the West grabbing as much of the former Eastern Bloc/Warsaw Pact countries onto their side of a new Cold War style conflict while they felt that they had the chance to do so. 

When I think about all of this, it makes me feel depressed, like we have learned nothing. It brings to mind a famous quote by Albert Einstein, and this seemed like a perfect quote to not only incorporate here, but to end this blog entry on:

“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.” 

 - Albert Einstein.

Memo to NATO: Secure Lviv From Russian Aggression by Daniel Henninger, March 9, 2022:

The Allies saved West Berlin from the Soviets in 1948. They should save the Ukrainian city from Putin 2022.  

https://www.wsj.com/articles/memo-to-nato-secure-lviv-western-ukraine-russia-war-putin-zelensky-berlin-airlift-11646864113

The L'viv Opera:

My son, my girlfriend and her mom, and I pose in front of the L'viv Opera house. 

The L'viv Opera House interior:

The ticket for the L'viv Opera, which I kept.

Putin's face is featured prominently on toilet paper sold in L'viv.  We had heard about this,  and I could not resist taking a picture, even though I didn't want to actually buy it. 

Our trip to L'viv,  Ukraine Part Two:

Here was an image that stuck with me quite a bit from our day in Ukraine. On the way to L'viv once in Ukraine, as well as on our way back towards the Polish border from L'viv, we kept having to slow down for horse drawn carriages. This was not an isolated incident, as it happened four times, if memory serves correctly. And it was not done for tourists, because there were few tourists who came this way. Our tour bus may have been one of two or three from our particular region, and it was not a huge or full sized bus, or anything. It seemed quaint at first, until I also realized that this was probably a sign, a visible symbol reminding us that, at the time, Ukraine ranked as Europe's poorest nation. Yet, I suspect (but cannot confirm with any facts to back me up on this) that the region where we were may have been one of the wealthiest parts of Ukraine, since it was sandwiches between the Polish border on the West, and the city of L'viv, the country's cultural capital, to the east. I wish that I had gotten the first one that we would see that day, during what was still fairly early morning. That man had truly looked like he had come from a different era, with clothes that looked rural, and a big, bushy mustache that I had kind of always associated with people in particular from cold, eastern countries like this. I do not want to say that he reminded me of a peasant, since that would sound judgmental and possibly insulting. But he definitely reminded me of a different era in history, and made me suspect that perhaps Ukraine had not quite put that era behind them as much as, say, neighboring Poland and other former Eastern Bloc countries that had since joined the EU and/or NATO, had managed to do.