The town of Kovel is far from the eastern front, but everyone knows a family who has lost a loved one in the fighting and air raid sirens are frequent.
Geographically, Kovel is far from the eastern front, but the war’s impact is omnipresent. With many townspeople in the military, almost everyone knows a family that has lost a loved one, and many more that are anxiously awaiting word about those fighting in the east.
Then there’s the threat from above. Last winter, Russia bombed the nearest power station, knocking out electricity in Kovel for two days. Earlier this month, the, about 45 miles to the southeast. There aren’t many communities in Ukraine where people can plausibly feel safe. Chaika and his staffers tell me that some days there are no air raid alerts, and some days there are as many as three or four. They said alarms occur more often at night, but as I was about to learn shortly, they can happen in the middle of the day as well.
Kovel became a way station for refugees from eastern Ukraine who were mostly headed to Poland; the mayor said 5,000 refugees stayed one night in the city’s large railway station.In an interview in his office, Chaika describes how he and the city government have had to tackle the problems as they arose.
The hardest part of his job, he says, has been meeting with family members of the Kovel’s nearly four dozen slain soldiers.Post Opinions provides commentary on the war in Ukraine from columnists with expertise in foreign policy, voices on the ground in Ukraine and more.
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