Day 17
An update from Vienna's central train station. The war in Ukraine continues, as does Russia's international and psychological isolation.
I took this photo years ago in Moscow. The book is The Government Inspector by Nikolai Gogol. It seemed appropriate in the context of what I experienced this morning. I was at Vienna’s central train station at 7am this morning, helping to translate, provide help, and offer food and drinks to refugees from Ukraine, for the sixth day in a row. Today it dawned on me: Austrian authorities have had a week now to understand what is happening and react. And yet, at the train station itself, there are few warm places for Ukrainians to wait hours for their next trains, and the charity offerings of water, bananas and small sandwiches, while well intentioned, but also in a drafty, cold corner, are simply not enough. Ukrainians who have been travelling for days and nights on end need warm meals.
So I let off some steam, here. I hope it has now gotten a ball rolling that will roll without me. Thank you to all of you who responded and brought instant soups by the train station this afternoon! There are plenty of local aid organization and government experts who should know how one responds in these situations. And yet…
You can read the whole thread here.
This morning we handed out dozens of morning coffees and hot chocolates to Ukrainians waiting in line to be issued train tickets to continue their journeys to other parts of Austria, Germany, Italy, Prague. We bought more instant soups at a supermarket for the Caritas stand — hot food was in demand and at 9am there wasn’t a lot of choice in the station itself.
As we were making another circle around the train station, I looked up and saw a group of many, many toddlers and a few nuns. The instant I saw them I knew what it must be: an orphanage that had to evacuate. How many are you, I asked one of the nuns? 22, she replied, as we picked a crying very young boy off the floor.
I guided them all to the food court where there are warmer tables and chairs, and we bought coffee, juices and sandwiches for the children, all of whom were tiny, but I was assured by the women in charge that the children would eat anything. My heart was breaking but I held back tears because my tears would be of zero use to them. Breakfast. Breakfast would help.
The nuns, ladies, and toddlers were from Ivano-Frankivsk in western Ukraine and had been travelling since Monday. Since Monday! Today is Saturday. They said Budapest was awful and they had trouble getting tickets westwards. They are now, as I write this, hopefully halfway to Switzerland where they will be met. We bought them more diapers and formula in ready-to-drink bottles for the long train journey this afternoon. The nuns were amazingly calm and in charge of such a large group of very small children with just a few other women to help them. I’ve never seen anything like it. Another one of many scenes I witnessed this week which I will not forget. The nuns spoke Ukrainian, I answered in Russian, and somehow it worked. Somehow we understood each other.
They were grateful, and I hope we showed them a little gesture of our collective humanity here, with support from you all. Thank you. Many of you who read me here and on Twitter have written to ask if you can send me donations to spend here in Vienna at the train station. For now, I have received some funds which I will use up first. Once those are gone, I will let you know. I just don’t want to accept what I cannot spend immediately to help Ukrainians passing through Vienna right now.
While Ukraine’s women, children and elderly arrive in Europe in the millions, the war rages on at home. Look at this horrific photo from besieged Mariupol. Russia is clearly planning to encircle the major Ukrainian cities it has not been able to take militarily so far.
The stage is already being set for the encirclement of Kyiv. In his speech today, Zelensky spoke this morning about Ukraine’s war of independence. He spoke of everyone coming together to work around the clock to defend the nation.
The air raid sirens are going again in Kyiv as I type this on Saturday afternoon.
Illegal weapons are already being used in Kyiv targeting civilian areas. Putin sent planes from Moscow to Syria yesterday to bring back mercenaries. The people in the Kremlin who massively miscalculated this war so far must at least understand you won’t find Russians as murders for hire to go after Ukrainians so instead they recruit men seasoned by Russia’s years of total destruction of Syria on behalf of Assad.
Brutal attacks continue on Mykolaiv (home region of your favorite governor Kim).
Mariupol, a once vibrant waterfront city, has been turned by Russia into the saddest, most desperate place on earth. Read this urgent thread from the ICRC there.
The humanitarian situation is beyond dire. Do read this from Odessa. I saw the toddlers today from western Ukraine. They are tiny and exhausted and have been travelling for days and are not equipped to flee a war. These are impossible tasks.
At the same time, Russia’s economy is totally unravelling. The Moscow moms are trading dollars amongst themselves and searching for basic prescription medicines which have suddenly disappeared, police are paying people house calls to warn them against even thinking about walking near a protest, and the Russian grannies are sharing some awfully depressing memes. But as one Russian journalist and one American screenwriter correctly point out: all of this is nothing compared to what Ukraine and its people are going through right now:
A good report from Moscow:
People, some very smart people, are still trying to figure out what is in Putin’s head. Every day I am asked, “what is HE thinking?”. And every day I say, it is not just HIM. Putin’s fascism is a cancer and it has spread. If the problem was just one man, well then there would be another man brave enough to solve the problem. This hasn’t happened yet, so I think we can infer that the problem runs deeper.
This thread makes the argument that Putin isn’t irrational and was given bad advice based on the system he built in which no one is rewarded for giving honest answers (full article here).
I’m still more inclined to go with the angry psycho argument, as Russia continues to turn up the temperature with the point of no return long being passed. Old man rage blinded by facts visible to everyone but him feels like a good assessment of the situation. But it doesn’t explain the collective psychosis, the fear and denial and paranoia about the west that state propaganda has stirred up and some people in Russia seem to genuinely believe. So I’m afraid one bullet doesn’t solve anything. That’s why I fear this war only ends with violence in Russia itself. That’s why I think this is all just the beginning.
Meanwhile, in Austria…also unfortunately very predictable:
Just as the humanitarian reaction so far has been a mixed bag, so will be Austria’s response to Putin’s war in Ukraine. The war will continue, many people and much of the media will lose interest, we will be told to stop talking about it 24/7, that what happens in Ukraine stays in Ukraine, that neutral means neutral, until one day Europeans will wake up and realize the war has come to us and everyone will say: we didn’t see it coming, we cannot believe it is happening to us.
Sound familiar?
I leave you with this (sound on) beautiful video from Odessa:
Thank you for reading.
I’m going to recharge my batteries, both emotional and physical, and head back to the train station tomorrow morning. I like the mornings. The hope of a new day. The smell of freshly brewed coffee. The names of the destinations across central Europe displayed on the giant blue timetable offering some small promise of hope, of a fresh start, once the exhaustion is overcome, fresh showers are had, clothes are washed and unpacked, dogs taken off leashes, children finally allowed to run around.
Also please read this as a warning to us all to be vigilant in public spaces; police in Europe are already warning Ukrainian women about attempts made by criminals and human traffickers to lure them away from train stations with promises of housing and jobs etc.
Life must and does go on.