AFPC has visited Ukraine routinely over the years, but none of our trips there (or elsewhere, for that matter) has been anything like our wartime visit to the capital Kyiv and port city Odesa January 20- 29. The absence of civil air connections into Ukraine due to the war required short, but useful, stops in Warsaw on the way into Ukraine by train and in Chisinau on the way out by vehicle. The eight-member delegation was led by Dr. William Schneider, Jr., former Under Secretary of State and AFPC President Herman Pirchner, Jr. (complete delegation list attached). We engaged in a constantly-evolving program of meetings — half a dozen or more per day (list of meetings attached). The program was interrupted by air raids — now a daily experience in urban Ukraine — which deprived the delegation of some much-anticipated encounters. Nonetheless, the five days in Ukraine were among the fullest in the experience of these veteran travelers.
Unlike other recent Washington delegations to Kyiv, our visit was organized directly with Ukrainian counterparts and without involvement of the State Department. Our meetings included senior Ukrainian Government figures in the fields of defense, intelligence, energy and infrastructure, elected Members of the State Rada across the political spectrum plus the mayors of both major cities, diverse representatives of Ukraine’s vibrant civil society, victims of Russia’s attacks on ordinary communities and citizens, uniformed combatants in the country’s struggle for survival, and US ambassadors and embassy staff. In contrast to previous AFPC visits to Ukraine since the onset of Russia’s war in 2014, we could not visit the actual battlefront. The previous low-intensity conflict is now a major European war, so Ukrainian authorities understandably were unwilling to expose foreign visitors to the very real dangers of the front lines, and we accepted that Ukraine’s soldiers have more demanding and important tasks. Although our visit was limited to the rear areas of this war (air raids excepted), we met with some front-line combatants. Our impressions thus are of Ukraine “in depth” — of the “home front” and its institutions in support of the battlefield.
