Concentric Rings of Cruelty
A Canadian Expat Recalls the First Day of Putin’s War on Ukraine
Non-Fiction by Bob Hume. Photos by Leanne Jijian Hume
As I write this, one hundred days of Putin’s illegal, immoral, and pointless orgy of vandalism, thievery, torture, rape, and murder have passed. I gratefully accepted subTerrain’s offer to run a personal essay on my experiences because I thought writing it might force me to organize that experience for myself, at least enough to put together something coherent for others to appreciate.
Ultimately, that’s proven impossible. In drafting a piece that both conveys my relationship to Ukraine and reads coherently, I went well beyond my allotted word limit and only covered the first day of the war. There’s just too much. Too many externalities to track, and too many internal, emotional interconnections. Perhaps it was a doomed effort from the get-go. Maybe I can’t make sense of what’s been happening because it’s intrinsically nonsensical, literal insanity on a breathtakingly daunting scale.
Initially, I struggled to justify foregrounding my story over the backdrop of far more affected Ukrainians, but a wise man once said, ‘the more personal, the more universal,’ so this essay is an attempt to share the way it felt to bear witness as incalculable evil is visited on good people I know well, and with whom I have shared some of the best years of my life.
Please understand: no part of this is about any hardship I faced. Early on in the war, the phrase ‘concentric rings of cruelty’ became my family’s shorthand for ‘the cumulative effect of Putin’s choice to decimate Ukraine.’ Essentially, the closer to the centre, the greater the effect of the cruelty. This diminishes as you move outward in gradations of misery. Those who have lost their lives fell at the crosshairs. The maimed and wounded are ever-so-slightly outside of that. Then those who’ve lost living spaces and livelihoods; the ones who’ve left their communities, their country; the ones who are separated, knowing their people are in harm’s way, or unprotected in unfamiliar spaces. As Canadian residents of Ukraine, we’re on the very edge of the board.
We’ve gone from mute shock to horror to terror to liquid fury and back again so many times I no longer feel them as fundamentally different emotions. Our lives have been upended, and our hearts broken. Our thoughts and dreams have been paved over by an unending stream of all-too-real horror. But we’ve merely been inconvenienced. It’s been disruptive and expensive, but that’s a grain of sand against the planet-sized despair our friends and colleagues have endured with very nearly superhuman courage and resolve.
Leanne, and I have lived in Kyiv with our sixteen-year-old daughter Vivian (who now goes by ‘Ollie’) since August of 2013. Ollie was seven when she first laid bleary, jet-lagged eyes on The Motherland Statue — a 102-metre stainless steel warrior woman gazing eastward across the Dnipro River with a raised shield and sword — as we rode into town after our very first arrival at Boryspyl International. We work for a company called Quality Schools International in the secondary division of Kyiv International School. I teach Film and Media, Leanne teaches Drama and Photography, and Ollie is a Sec II (Grade 10) student.
There’s no way to convey the extent to which we have entwined ourselves with Ukraine, and vice versa. Think about a hedge that’s grown up around and through a wrought iron fence for years, for so long that it’s no longer easy to tell what’s fence and what’s hedge. We share material.
Mostly, that’s in relationships we’ve forged. With Valya and Zoya, twin sisters from Chernyhiv who first guided us around Kyiv and then later, Lviv and Odessa. With Anatoly, a boundlessly creative PE teacher, and his wife, Julia, who taught eight-year-olds with the energy of a caffeinated hummingbird. With Olga, who teched the theatre in which Leanne builds worlds each year, and Olga’s father, Vadim, who tended the soccer field astride a tiny John Deere tractor. With Oleg, who set up everything needed for anything, anytime, anywhere.
With Yana, who ran the director’s office. With the trio of Annas who kept the books in the finance office. With the library ladies.
And that’s just in the school.
Yuliya cleaned our apartment twice a week for so long, she’s simply family. Zhanna took our orders for end-of-week dinners at Le Silpo for years. We refer to the five ladies of a certain age who were the concierges of our apartment building on Peremoghy Avenue as ‘Babushkas’ (Grandmothers).
We ate our first of many meals at The Cave Restaurant a day after we first arrived. We spent dozens of weekend days enjoying live music at the Art Platform near the eastern end of the M1 (Red) Metro line. Leanne had hoped to visit every theatrical performance place in the city by the time we chose to move on. (In nine years, she scratched the surface.)
We’ve walked the city uncountable times; down Khreschatyk Street, a parade-ready canyon of high-end storefronts with Soviet facades; across Kontraktova Plosha on the way to Zhovten Theatre; to Lavina Mall, a perfect 5 km walk during covid lockdown; to Petrivka Metro Station, surrounded by a sea of kiosks selling anything you could think of, in particular, the used magazines Leanne likes to cannibalize for photos taken in the 70s, or 80s.
The summer we arrived, we had little or no first-hand knowledge of Kyiv. We soon learned how lucky we were. KIS, massive and modern compared to our previous posting in Dili, Timor-Leste, ran at a pace that seemed unreachable at first. By February, we had settled in. Then the Maidan protests happened. After weeks of clashes between those who favoured a more western-leaning path forward and forces representing Viktor Yanukovych’s Russian-aligned government, more than a hundred Ukrainians had died. But Yanukovych was ousted and fled Ukraine for Moscow.
Posted on Facebook, February 23, 2014
Hello from Newkraine!!
You know that video of a glacier the size of Manhattan Island sliding into a fjord? This moment feels big on that scale.
So what can be crammed into a Facebook update that adds anything meaningful to any of that?
Just a clumsy love letter from a Johnny-Come-Late-to-this-party:
I have fallen head over ass over teakettle in love with this place and with these people.
They’re brave, and noble, and organized, and indefatigable, and strong, and smart; they show restraint when it’s appropriate, and rage when it’s appropriate, and grief when it’s appropriate, and just lately, joy.
And is it ever appropriate.
I don’t know what’s coming next, and I don’t really believe anyone who says they do, but I have seen things that quite simply I have no reference point for.
Do you know what happens as soon as the fires on the barricades go out? A swarm of people sweep up the ashes just immediately before another swarm of people starts rebuilding the next barricade.
Do you know what’s happened to all those paving stones that were picked and crow- barred up and turned into missiles to hurl against the guys with water cannons and sniper rifles? They’re already neatly piled up.
You know the ‘number of dead’ figure that kept climbing all through the last week? (The largest one I’ve seen is a hundred, but I bet that’s going to be bigger when all is said and done.) I never once saw that number broken down by which side the dead came from. Here, they were all part of the same loss.
St. Volodymyr Cathedral, Kyiv
A local security service that escorted Senator McCain’s entourage through the crowd simply asked the crowd to make a hole, and guess what — a hole was made. One second, you couldn’t have fallen over for the bodies packed into the accessway, and the next, there was a nice, big wide path for the American delegation to walk to the stage to address the crowd.
Twenty minutes later, McCain was done, and the same respectful parting of the crowd happened again. I shook McCain’s hand and said it was nice to see him there offering support and encouragement. He saw the Canadian flag I was wearing like a cape and said it was nice to see me there too.
At one point, the entire crowd sang the national anthem. I stood there, surrounded by those voices, shaking from the chills that ran up and down my spine for the duration.
You talk about a moment. Jesus.
And then, a month or more later, the shooting had started, and the school was closed to keep our buses off the uncertain streets. I saw those same few metres of sidewalk.
I saw fire.
And I saw rage.
I saw a city burn, and I saw wounded people dragged out of harm’s way on home- made plywood shields.
And I saw men put dirty hands over their eyes and weep uncontrollably over bodies wrapped in blood-stained blue-over-yellow.
Does this sound self-aggrandizing? God, I hope not.
What I want to say is not, “Look at me!” but rather, “Look at them!”
Look at them. Look.
My God, just look.
Fast forward eight years, to 2022. By then, Russia had annexed Crimea in 2014. The deafening non-reaction to that led to a Russian-backed separatist movement in the Donbas that flared up hot, then almost immediately luke-warmed down into a stalemate more like World War I trench fighting than any kind of ‘modern’ war. Archaic, unless you count the Buk surface- to-air missile that dropped MH-17 out of the sky on July 17. By mid-August, when we got back to Kyiv, the story had faded from the front-most pages of the non-Ukrainian press.
Many times, between 2014 and 2022, I was asked by friends and family about the situation, and each time, I gave a fundamentally similar answer: “The fighting is far away, and it isn’t dynamic. People die, but, day-to- day, it’s not really on our radar.” Now, I wonder at the blithe ignorance it took to not read the radar better. Around three quarters of Kyiv International School’s full time staff — teachers, paraprofessionals, specialist staff, it, finance and admin assistants, as well as maintenance, cleaning, and transportation teams — are fiercely, proudly, and unmistakably Ukrainian. The war was definitely on radar. Lots of radar. Just not mine.
In 2020, covid reached Ukraine, so we masked up and hand-sanitized, Zoomed, quarantined, broke into cohorts, and waited for a vaccine. Having navigated what we assumed would be the strangest experience we’d have as overseas teachers, we started 2021-22 thinking the worst was surely over and cautiously nurturing hopes for a more- or-less normal year. At first, largely speaking, we got our wish. Despite short flare-ups of cases, there were clear signs of progress. But all that year, clouds were forming. Russian troops had begun massing in the spring. News stories of both western warnings and Russian denials of a potential invasion became more frequent, more strident, and harder to brush off as business as usual.
If you’ve ever lived in California, you can approximate the way we felt about the real-yet-remote possibility of catastrophe by substituting the word ‘earthquake’ for ‘invasion.’ Perhaps due to the place in our minds the Donbas conflict occupied, perhaps due to the casual incredulity with which many Ukrainians greeted western concern, and perhaps due to a misguided hope that it would all come to nothing, we didn’t take the threat all that seriously.
Not everyone had the luxury of burying their heads. As the buildup continued, the school’s admin team took counsel from embassies, many of whose employees had students at KIS. There’s a symbiotic relationship between the school and the embassies in Ukraine, especially, given the progeny of our company, with the US Embassy. Throughout covid, the school had relied on their sometimes explicit, occasionally cryptic input. They didn’t ‘give orders,’ but they generously shared valuable information, access to experts, and many recommendations. We were told that packing a ‘go bag’ of ready cash, documents, and unleavables was a good idea. Leanne and I made mental lists of the stuff we’d take. Passports. Hard drives of irreplaceable digital treasures. A binder of contracts, insurance policies, and financial records. Some gifts and souvenirs we’d picked up here and there. We didn’t actually pack them, but we made sure we knew where they were.
Revolution of Dignity
By the time winter break had ended, it was clear that, for the professional diplo- mats orbiting the KIS community, things had escalated sharply. In January, many embassies ordered non-essential staff and all staff children out of Ukraine. ‘How’s it going?’ was replaced by ‘Are you leaving,’ in the morning coffee line. Ripples spread quickly through our large, diverse community. The diplomat’s kids had no real choice. They left immediately. Many non-diplomatic families either moved altogether or sent their children elsewhere. A few Ukrainians who had the means and sent their children across a border, but most did not. QSI announced that KIS international staff who felt unsafe could leave as well, on the understanding they would continue teaching online. Just under thirty overseas hires evacuated, most for various locations around Europe, some to the us. The phrase used most when talking about those who had gone was ‘an abundance of caution.’
Holodomor Memorial
As two of the ‘left behind,’ Leanne and I were in territory that felt a lot like the first days of covid. A similar offer and immediate exodus had happened then, and, as before, this inevitably created gaps and led to complications. We indulged ourselves in a slight sense of moral superiority, feeling that there maybe was a certain lack of courage on display. Looking back, that seems both unkind and misguided. Several times, with the easy bravado of the untested, I said I’d leave Kyiv when there were actual Russian tanks on the streets. Dumb, sure, but I simply couldn’t imagine Russia doing what their army has always done to Ukraine. Not to my neighbourhood. Not to my friends. Underneath it all, I thought this: Even if they do it, and even if it’s really bad, they won’t be interested in us. They’ll want us out of the way. I’m not proud of that. Reading it now, I think it says, ‘I’m a short-sighted idiot at best, and an entitled coward at worst.’ But that was the thinking at the time.
I soon found out how wrong I was in almost every conceivable configuration. Following the first round of staff and student departures, the remaining international staff, all of the local hires, and the vast majority of the student body pottered on. We simply folded what we’d learned during covid into this new crisis. Despite the sobering reduction of bodies on cam- pus, those ‘holding down the fort’ felt upbeat and confident.
When speculating about what might happen next, my astonishingly inaccurate guess was that there would simply be a draw-down; the Russians would return home the same way they had arrived; in dribs and drabs. Putin, having made whatever point he thought he was making, would pat himself on the back, and resume grinding away at The Donbas just enough to both unsettle the west and hobble Ukraine’s economic development.
On Friday, February 11, I was at KIS Director Luke Woodruff’s house. As I was leaving, he got a phone call letting him know that the recommendation from the us Embassy was no longer ‘wait and see.’ Riding home in an Uber, I texted Leanne to let her know things were about to change.
The next morning, the international staff met on Zoom. The US Embassy was advising foreign hires to evacuate ASAP. We were told to book flights and go, that relocation costs would be covered, and that if we went to a city with a QSI school, our accommodations would be as well. We were to minimize interruptions to online teaching so the students, many of whom were reacting to the same changes we were, could carry on as usual.
Posted on Facebook, February 12, 2022
Well, fuck.
The word came down this morning that the recommendation from KIS and QSI has changed from ‘Leave if you gotta’ to ‘You gotta leave.’
So, it’s with heavy hearts that we sit on the couch in our pj’s and book flights / accommodations in Tirana.
I’d love to be talking about how excited we are to be getting on a plane, but all we can dredge up is a kind of heartbroken resignation.
I’m writing here so that everyone who’s been checking in will see that we’re safe and heading for more safety.
But I’m also painfully aware that many who read this won’t be going anywhere.
They’ll be here after we’re gone, waiting to see what madness may come.
Man, I hope the experts are wrong, and that Uncle Pooty gets bored and goes home without shots fired.
Man, I hope none of the awesome amazing people I’ve come to love like countrymen face losses I can’t even imagine.
I hope the noble flag of Ukraine continues to fly proud and free above the country I’ve come to love and call home. I hope... I hope... I hope.
To my Canadian friends: Don’t stress. We are lucky. Very, very lucky to have the options we have.
To my Ukrainian friends: I’m so sorry to leave you this way. I wish there was more that I could say, and more that I could do.
We love you. We care deeply about you, and your beautiful, flawed, fledgling democracy.
Be safe. Be strong.
I’m not a person of faith, so I won’t offer a prayer, but you are in our hearts and our thoughts.
Slava Ukraina.
We packed three go bags, changed as much of our Ukrainian cash to US dollars as we could, got pre-flight covid tests, and moved a few things to the school, thinking that the campus (with its perimeter fence and twenty-four-hour guards) was likely more secure than our apartment. Cutting through the elementary area, I was struck by the silence. Bulletin boards of student work hung limp and lifeless in late-afternoon winter gloom. Little shoes were piled askance in cubbies. An Iron Man hoodie lay forgotten on a couch.
Suddenly, inexplicably, I was angry about (of all things) the interruption. These little people, who’d made it most of the way through a pandemic, who’d kept calm and carried on to the best of their ability, were now unable to do something as simple as come to school.
Why shouldn’t they get to learn and play? Why shouldn’t they get to sing, dance, act, and paint? To love, hope, share, and grow? To make new friends, get in stupid fights, and then make up again? To try out for basketball, make the team, and then instantly regret it (because how are you supposed to practice, play, and pass AP History?) Beyond our campus, an entire country was turning away from their everyday, get-up-in-the-morning, put-food-on-the-table, don’t-forget-the-dentist normalcy and steering into deep, dangerous uncertainty. I felt a little flicker of something unfamiliar: hate.
I straightened the shoes and folded the hoodie, then walked it back to the lost and found.
As Leanne and I were leaving, a security guard came out of his station to say something. Lacking even basic Russian or Ukrainian, we’ve never gotten to know the guards as well as we should have, but we always shared a casual wave on the way by. This wasn’t casual. It was formal. Important. The guard, a man in his late forties or early fifties, made direct, deliberate eye contact, straightened his back, and stuck out his hand.
“Goodbye,” he said.
We shook and I said, “I’m sorry.” He nodded.
“I’m sorry,” I said again.
Tears welled up in my eyes. He saw them, looked away quickly, and then nodded again. We hugged. He went back into his station to wait, and Leanne and I walked home in silence.
On Monday, February 14, we flew out of Boryspil International Airport at 4:15 am and landed in Tirana, Albania just after lunch. We cabbed to a two-bedroom Airbnb not far from the centre of the city. By Wednesday, we were up and running.
We chose Albania because QSI runs Tirana International School. A good friend, Mistina, works there, as does a US/Ukrainian couple, Dan and Natasha, who we knew from Kyiv. Their kids had both passed through our classes.
At first, despite the reason for the relocation, the vibe was all right. We felt good about what we’d thought to bring and certain we could live without the stuff we’d left behind until we got back. But being in Albania (or, more accurately, not being in Ukraine) felt very odd. We had no impulse to explore. Leanne, who normally loves dry red the way the nearly-drowned love big gulps of dry air, ordered a glass at the first restaurant we visited, pronounced it ‘great,’ and didn’t touch it again. We were simply waiting (at that point, expecting, really) to go back to Kyiv. We were there-but-not-there, killing time at a departure gate on a particularly long layover.
Instead, we watched the news (endless loops of more-of-the-same) and exchanged messages with friends and family, all of whom expressed concern for us and gratitude for our safety. ‘We’re fine,’ I kept writing. ‘We’re more than safe. But, please, spare a thought for Ukraine.’
Friday evening, we had dinner with Mistina, Dan, and Natasha. While there was plenty of apprehension, no one was predicting tragedy. Or, to be more specific, none of the North Americans were predicting tragedy. Natasha, who was born in Ukraine during the Soviet era, and who had lived a lot closer to a lot more history than the rest of us, wasn’t nearly as blasé. She stopped short of telling us we were wrong, but she clearly had doubts.
Maidan Square, Kyiv
February Break began the following Monday. Mistina offered to show us a bit of Albania. Saturday, we drove south and spent the night in a hotel overlooking the Adriatic. Waking at first light, I snapped a picture of Leanne, silhouetted against the bottomless blue of our window, clutching herself tightly and staring out at the sea. There was no need to ask what she was thinking about. Sunday, we drove up into the mountains and then back to Tirana.
Monday, the Russian government recognized the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics. Tuesday, Putin addressed his Security Council, forcing them to publicly support turning a modern military machine loose on our friends and their homes. We slept poorly after that, checking messages through the night and waking up groggy the next day.
Wednesday, we toured TIS. Many KIS families had enrolled their kids in other schools, and, while that option was generously provided and much-appreciated, Ollie had no interest in letting go of KIS. We nodded politely, admired the spectacularly well-situated campus, and headed back to our B&B. On the morning of Thursday, February 24, we woke to the news that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine by land, sea, and air had begun.
I remember that first visceral, gut-punch-shock of opening my iPad around 6:00 am Ukrainian time and reading ‘Russia Attacks As Putin Warns the World,’ on the New York Times site. I stood up, then sat down, and then laid down again. Leanne was still asleep, and I felt clearly that waking her meant dragging her from a peaceful, hopeful world into a violent and terrifying one, one where all of our friends and all of their families were in direct, mortal danger.
After a moment, I woke her up and told her. Then we woke Ollie, and told her together. The three of us hugged and took turns crying while trying to think of what to do next. Ollie dove into her phone, tracking down and checking on friends. Leanne and I took to our laptops, she in the bedroom and me in the living room.
Kyiv
I haunted Facebook, CNN, and the New York Times, looking for anything encouraging or at least informative. CNN, France 24, BBC, Sky News, and Al Jazeera were all streaming direct to YouTube. In one image, shot from a bridge about six kilometres from our apartment and looking east towards downtown, the entire westbound half of Peremoghy Avenue was a crawling carpet of cars inching slowly forward. When body-armoured reporters spoke into cameras, I looked past them at the locations they’d chosen for their live feeds. Many were overlooking Maidan Square on Khreshatyk Street. Others were on Sophia Square. No matter where they were, I could find a detail — a canted street sign, a snarl of faded graffiti — I knew well enough to draw from memory. During one report on fierce fighting at Hostomel Airport, I could only stare over the reporter’s shoulder at the ledge of a fountain. I’d often waited there for Leanne to finish a massage at the Thai Elephant Spa, which was just out of frame, up the hill and across from the Canadian/ Australian Embassy building. When interrupted by nearby explosions, the reporters flinched visibly. I flinched with them.
At the same time, I was checking on anyone I had a Messenger or Viber contact for. I wrote ‘I’m so sorry,’ and ‘sending love’ so often my fingers could type the words with- out conscious thought. Everyone who had a spare moment to acknowledge the love, compassion, and outrage we sent wrote very similar responses: ‘Thank you,’ most said. ‘We know you are true friends.’ Yes, I thought. But there was also a nagging truth: I’m a true friend who, when the real shit started, got on a plane.
Most of the Ukrainian KIS staffers we’re close to are women. Almost all of them have kids, and many of their kids are very young. Nothing has ever prepared me to talk to a person who’s holding a child in their arms while facing the entirely real possibility that death may find them in the immediate future. I tried to ask questions that wouldn’t seem entirely, offensively stupid. More than anything, they needed shelter from the bombs that were falling all over Kyiv. The Metro stations began filling up almost right away. Some friends had dachas (summer homes), and these seemed safer than the city itself.
Many made their way to KIS, which has a basement and a fleet of buses that could be used to make border runs. We offered what we could. Some needed money, so we transferred what we had from card-to-card, a process that was interrupted several times by what we later learned were cyber-attacks. Real-world attacks were seemingly happening everywhere all at once, and moving with incredibly scary speed, but there were also reports of Ukrainian successes. A Russian bomber was shot down. A column of tanks was destroyed by something called ‘Javelins.’ A heroic young Ukrainian soldier gave his life to blow up a critical bridge near Bucha that stalled the tip of the invader’s spear. Whatever the outcome of the invasion might ultimately prove to be, it was clear that the Ukrainians had no intention of simply letting it happen.
Posted on Facebook on February 24, 2022
The news today seems somehow both depress- ingly inevitable and horrifyingly shocking.
If you’re reading this in Ukraine, Leanne, Ollie and I love you, and we are enraged that this horror is being visited upon you this way now.
If you’re reading it anywhere else, please support the underdogs in this one-sided, brutal, heartless and illegal war.
Make no mistake, any justifications offered by Russia’s leader are not reasons.
This is a cold-blooded, calculated crime, nothing more.
It’s on a massive scale, so the damage done, and the suffering imposed may also be massive, but it’s not more than a simple crime. A mugging.
A home invasion.
A cowardly act of violence.
If, by chance, you’re reading this in Russia, know that these actions are being carried out in your name. If you stand under that flag, you are in its shadow too.
Since February 24, we have endured ninety-nine more days of Putin’s senseless War of Russian Aggression in Ukraine. Each one has compounded the horror, terror, and molten, liquid fury I’ve experienced. The war continues, and all indications are that, ultimately, the final result will be a Ukrainian victory. When that day comes, and we can return to Kyiv, I have no idea what we’ll find. In the face of such staggering uncertainty, specific plans are almost guaranteed to be a wasted effort. As such, Leanne, Ollie, and I are keeping it very simple. The first thing we’ll do is celebrate the Ukrainian win. (If you think Ukrainians can fight, and they can, you should see them party.) Then, we’ll grieve for the lives lost or forever altered by loss, for the livelihoods and living spaces destroyed completely. Then we’ll get busy helping with the rebuilding.
KIS has committed to being there for the 2021-22 school year. We are fortunate to have been offered spots on the small team of international teachers that will be a part of it. (QSI has promised to retain as many Ukrainians as possible.) Ollie will be a KIS Kozak next year, which most likely means starting the International Baccalaureate Diploma Program online. We have no clear sense of what enrolment will be, but, obviously, the sooner Russia gives up completely and goes home, the better that will be. As of today, the plan is to return to Albania in August and stand by for the all-clear.
If you’d like to help Ukraine by donating to either the humanitarian or the military effort, please feel free to contact me at bob@teamhume.com. I have a range of options I can share with you.
Please keep Ukraine in your thoughts. If you have a faith, pray for a speedy victory. But please act as well. Ukraine needs and deserves the support of all free people everywhere. »