Opinion: God save Kharkiv from armchair experts in the West

Brian Dooley is a Senior Advisor at Washington-based NGO Human Rights First and Honorary Professor of Practice at Queen’s University, Belfast. He specializes in working with human rights activists in war and other conflict zones and is a regular visitor to Kharkiv. 

For a while this May, international attention was back on Ukraine for the few days of peace talks in Turkey.

It gave self-important commentators all over the world who have never been to Ukraine the chance to share their views on how the war should end, what would be fair terms for a settlement, and how much territory Russia should keep.

Social media, newspapers, radio, and TV shows in Western Europe and the United States were full of these uninformed opinions. Few of those discussing Ukraine have ever been there, fewer still to the eastern front to see the reality of what three — or eleven — years of constant Russian attacks look like up close.

There is a much-ignored old journalism rule that says when a place is in the news, Unless You’re From There, Live There, Or Have Spent Years Writing About It, you really should think twice about offering an opinion.

I know I barely qualify — I’ve made 19 trips to Ukraine since the full-scale invasion of February 2022 and half a dozen visits before that. In total, I’ve spent around seven months of the last three years in Ukraine, mostly in Kharkiv. It doesn’t make me an expert, but I get some sense of how distorted and ignorant many international views are of the eastern front.

Kharkiv is largely a blind spot for foreign diplomats and international NGOs. Few people from embassies visit, citing security concerns. When I complain to diplomats about them not going to Kharkiv, they wring their hands and say, “But we’re not allowed to.”

But these governments and other organizations are making a choice not to send their officials to visit Kharkiv and elsewhere in the east. I tell them it’s not hard, that several trains a day leave from Kyiv to Kharkiv. But — with some notable exceptions — the oblast is routinely ignored, and so what is happening there just isn’t seen or appreciated.

This issue hit a nerve during the February 28 White House press conference when President Trump and Vice-President Vance ambushed President Zelenskyy. “Have you ever been to Ukraine to see the problems we have?” an exasperated Zelenskyy asked Vance who, of course, has never seen firsthand what’s happening in Ukraine. 

As Kharkiv Mayor Igor Terekhov says, “We have many people supporting us, but they do not have the courage to come to Kharkiv.” Nothing beats the eyewitness experience, of seeing what’s left of Kupiansk now, of what towns and villages look like after Russian occupation, of how volunteers across the Kharkiv city and region are providing humanitarian aid despite a severe lack of resources.

If international organisations and foreign diplomats went to Kharkiv, they would see for themselves what’s being done, and how these activists deserve to be funded and protected. They would see how much local energy is focused on helping the vulnerable, how volunteer evacuation teams risk their lives every day to get civilians from the frontline, how people are devoting their days to helping others. 

This isn’t what British Prime Minister Starmer, French President Macron, German Chancellor Merz, and Polish Prime Minister Tusk got to see on their day trip to Kyiv before the Istanbul talks, but this is the reality for many in the east of Ukraine.

Much international media analysis rarely goes beyond what’s happening at a political level in Kyiv or beyond personal theories of what a peace deal should look like.

God save Kharkiv from armchair experts in the West who think “the reality” is that Russia should be rewarded for its invasions of Ukraine, that Ukrainians should “face facts,” and that Russia should get to keep the territories it illegally occupies.

It’s time they got off their asses, got on some buses and trains, listened to locals in Kharkiv, and saw the truth for themselves.

Opinion pieces reflect the thoughts of their authors and do not reflect Gwara Media’s views.

Read more

• “To believe Russia is to disrespect yourself.” Military in Kharkiv Oblast on Russia once again violating ceasefire they declared
• Kremlin propaganda finds voice in Europe’s alternative media. Ukraine shares experience in how to counter it

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