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A Ukrainian family arrives at Lviv's central train station after fleeing Kharkiv, April 15, 2022 in Lviv, Ukraine. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

From the frontline city of Mykolaiv to the international hub of Lviv, Hudson Fellow James Barnett [[link removed]] discussed his two weeks of reporting from Ukraine with Hudson's Kenneth Weinstein [[link removed]] and on the Counterbalance podcast hosted by Marshall Kosloff [[link removed]].

See key takeaways below, and join us Wednesday [[link removed]] for a conversation with Rep. French Hill on how the World Bank and IMF can provide development assistance to a cash-strapped Ukraine.

Watch the Interview [[link removed]] Listen to Counterbalance [[link removed]]

Key Takeaways

1. What Ukrainians Want from America

In terms of popular attitudes towards the U.S., people were very happy to see Americans there. They felt that certainly we were partners. While I certainly heard some people repeat Zelensky's request for no fly zones, what I heard more often was 'Give us that hardware, we'll know what to do with it. We can handle these Russians. We're showing that already.'

But especially I think the concern is really with the air force and the airstrikes. I'd have ordinary cab drivers or older ladies in bomb shelters would be talking about Patriot missile systems and Bayraktar [drones]. Everyone knows these phrases and these terms now, saying give us more, give us more. One refrain I heard a lot is that 'Putin is mad, but he's also a bit of a paper tiger,' and 'you guys are too afraid of escalation. We've seen the Russian military is very weak. If you guys give us more or take a more forceful role in the conflict, he'll have no choice but to cave.' The sentiment among the population there, which is already fighting the Russians, is that these guys are already throwing everything they can at us. We're holding the line. So give us more support and we'll push them back. I think that's the attitude I encounter the most.

2. The Growing Risk to Moldova

Moldova's border is just an hour away from Odesa, so the war is very real for them. There's a quote [I've heard], 'If Ukraine falls, we will be next.' Because Moldova is a small landlocked country with a military of only 6,000 to 7,000, they feel very vulnerable.

Russia has, in some ways, a de facto veto over Moldovan policy, because there's this Transnistria conflict, this little stretch of land that you could barely consider a state, but it's occupied by Russian troops. The Moldovan government's official policy is one of neutrality. They don't want to offer any pretext that could give any potential pretext for Russia to activate and unfreeze that conflict in Transnistria.

One area where Moldova has done incredibly well is on the humanitarian front. Now the country has taken in hundreds of thousands of refugees since the war started. And it's not even the Moldovan government so much; it's ordinary Moldovan people. The statistic I was told was that roughly 90% of refugees in Moldova are being housed privately by individual families, rather than in camps or anything established by the government or the INGOs.

3. Prepare for More Indiscriminate Violence from Russia

The massacre in Bucha is probably not an anomaly and there's already evidence emerging that there might have been large scale killings in some of the southern occupied territories like Kherson. [We need to] brace ourselves for more of those images and reports because unfortunately, this seems to be a systemic element of the Russian war fighting. They are incredibly indiscriminate in how they fight.

I think that's something emotionally to brace one's self for. I think the other thing is just to not read too much into the day-to-day reports on the diplomatic front. The Ukrainians I talk to have been very blunt and correct in saying Russian agreements aren't worth the paper they're written on. Which doesn't mean that diplomacy is not worth pursuing, but just that it can be very easy to fall into this trap of seeing a news update and thinking, oh, those are positive signals from Istanbul [where diplomatic negotiations occurred]. Even these negotiations, whatever form they take, they're likely to be drawn out and the Russians are going to continue to cause a lot of destruction in part to increase their leverage.

Quotes may be edited for clarity and length.

Watch the Interview [[link removed]] Listen to Counterbalance [[link removed]] Go Deeper

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No Respite on Ukraine’s Bloody Southern Front [[link removed]]

In New Lines magazine, James [[link removed]] speaks with Ukrainians remaining behind the line of contact in Mykolaiv, who testify to the fact that whatever the Russian military cannot capture on the ground, it will seek to pulverize from a distance with its artillery, aircraft, and missiles, without distinguishing between civilian and military targets.

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