Local in Ukraine just before war began

Local attorney and physical therapist Bill Whitman had a brush with the dark side of geo-politics this month. He had scheduled a visit to a clinic in Ukraine, but history in the form of the Russian military intervened:

“Things started to get hot and I started looking for alternatives and while on layover in Istanbul, I changed my flight from Kiev to Odessa thinking it might be safer there.

“Biden had already told Americans to ‘get out’ Super Bowl weekend. During the three days I was there it was a little surreal. I saw no military buildup, everything seemed calm and the people did not seem especially alarmed. I asked quite a few locals if they were alarmed or worried about a pending invasion and they all said no, that they were used to Putin and the already ongoing war in Eastern Ukraine. A barista actually laughed out loud when I asked him the question. I went to the local grocery and nobody was stocking up.

“Then, in contrast, my friends back home were all texting me telling me to get out. I was reading every western press article I could. I knew that Moldova was only 25 miles away (thinking that’s a marathon, I can run it if I have to).

“What I didn’t originally know was that Russia already had troops in Moldova.“I got the personal phone number of my Uber driver in case I needed a ride south to (the ferry) to take me to Romania. I definitely didn’t sleep all that well.

“I’ve been in touch with the clinic since the war began. They are finding it hard psychologically and are hanging in. They liken it to a bad dream from which they cannot wake up.

“I was able to move my flight up to get out. I felt personal relief when flying home, but dread for what was almost certain to come. I am glued to the news. I truly hope Ukraine can hold on. I’ve had such utter disdain and disgust for Putin for decades, whether it’s cheating in the Olympics, shooting down domestic planes, assassinating (poisoning) political foes in exile, promoting cybercrime, etc., all before the current atrocity.”

The Crier also asked Bill if he’d ever been in similar dicey travel situations. He recounted a few: “I rode a bicycle south from California over 3,000 miles ending up in Peru in the 90s and passed through parts of Central America that were undergoing internal strife.

“I had machine-gun-toting guards stop me (at gunpoint) in the Pyrenees in the mid-80s when the ETA [a terrorist organization] of the Basque area was in conflict with the Spanish government. (I was riding a moped from Biarritz, France to Pamplona for the Running of the Bulls).

“Lastly, ironically, during law school, I was in a program abroad that was in both Moscow and St. Petersburg.”