Beauty and brutality in Ukraine

Lindsey Alexander

Friday 30 January 2026

Early in the new year, a group of International Relations experts from St Andrews dodged drone strikes, relentless snowdrifts and slept in underground bunkers on a trip to learn more about the experiences of people and politicians in Ukraine.

Professor Phillips O’Brien, Chair of Strategic Studies in the School of International Relations, was joined by St Andrews academic Professor Stephen Gethins MP, and colleagues Professor Kristen Harkness and Dr Marc De Vore, in Kyiv.

The party was also joined by retired Air Marshal Edward Stringer, former Director-General of the Defence Academy and Director-General of Joint Force Development, Strategic Command, for part of the trip.

One of the highlights of the visit was an event held at Kyiv Mohyla Academy (KMA) organised by Ostap Kryvdyk, one of the John Smith Trust’s Ukranian Fellows, who runs a discussion club at the University. This gave Professor O’Brien and Professor Gethins the opportunity to meet with ten JST Fellows as well as Dr Yuliia Lysanets, Coordinator of International Cooperation, and Dr Yuriy Petrushenko, Director of the Fund of the President of Ukraine for Education, Science, and Sports to discuss the developing partnership with the JST in Ukraine.

Professor O’Brien, who has become a renowned commentator on the war in Ukraine since the full-scale invasion almost four years ago, said: “The Fellows are all graduates of the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy. For them, I believe, it was useful to host both a visiting MP and an academic known to be supportive of Ukraine. It was good to hear more about their experiences and get their perspective on the ongoing war and its impact.”

“During the event, Stephen discussed the European view of Ukraine at present, going into national and international politics and I discussed the state of the war and how military developments seem to be unfolding. We then engaged in group conversation where they had many interesting comments and reflections to share. It was a powerful sign of the active and engaged JST community in Kyiv.”

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The visit also involved a meeting with members of the Come Back Alive Foundation, a charity set up to provide funds to the Ukrainian Defense Force. Since it was launched the charity has raised the equivalent of £711 million and its work has been recognised by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy who awarded state honours to two members of the team.

Professor O’Brien went on to talk about what he’d learned from Ukrainians during the visit.

Themes

“If there have been two consistent themes that I have heard from the Ukrainians is that they believe that Putin and the Russians are out to destroy them as a people and a culture. Here they are, almost 4 years into this war, and the Russians are sacrificing hundreds of thousands of their soldiers to take small farm fields. The Russians are making this sacrifice partly because they are willing to kill more of their soldiers to be able to kill one Ukrainian soldier…Even if there is a ceasefire in the near future (and opinions were divided on this) the basic fact that the Russian state sees a free and independent Ukraine as incompatible to its own greatness has been widely accepted here. Even if the fighting ends for a bit, they assume it will come back sooner rather than later. Russia’s problem is Ukraine itself, and a ceasefire will not correct that.”

He added: “The second theme of the trip was that Ukrainians have learned to live with the kinds of deprivations that would cause most Americans and Europeans to panic and maybe break down. The last few days have been bitterly cold, minus 15 Celsius.”

Conditions

“Much of the left bank of Kyiv, a city of millions, had been without power, heat and even water for days. In Dnipro it is even worse. And yet, no one complained. Far from it. They accepted this extraordinary situation as now a part of their life, a horrible but necessary condition that they must experience if they are going to survive.”

“…And I can only imagine what the Ukrainian soldiers at the front are experiencing in this brutal cold. I did not go to the front as I see no glory in academics/analysts cosplaying Rambo. Indeed, I find it unconscionable. By going near the front, all you are doing is asking Ukrainians who are accompanying you to risk their lives for nothing.

“However, I met many soldiers who have been at the front. And they were appalled by this winter. The last few winters have been unseasonably warm in Ukraine—this one is not. Its brutally cold, and its only January. It could get worse.”

Debate

Professor O’Brien added: “The real debate I heard here remains the most complex one. Do they threaten to do to Moscow or St Petersburg what the Russians have been doing repeatedly to Kyiv or Dnipro? They do not want to do it, clearly. However, as they are fighting for their very existence and the support of their partners remains so erratic, this question remains in the balance.”

The trip, supported by Friends of Ukraine, also included a visit to one of the country’s most northerly towns, Chernihiv, and the village of Yahidne, full of beautiful building and surrounded by rich agricultural land, but blighted by recent atrocities.

Commenting on the horrors that afflicted Yahidne, Professor O’Brien said: “There were some pretty pre-Soviet houses, some modern concrete ones, a school, etc. However, when the Russian army showed up in 2022, everything changed. What the Russians did was force practically the entire village into the dark, cramped basement of the concrete block of a primary school.

“After a few days they had imprisoned more than 300 people in a handful of windowless rooms so tightly packed that even counting all the people was hard. The Russians, to help them keep track of how many people they had imprisoned, wrote the number of prisoners (and children) in chalk on the outside of each room.

“In these cramped conditions, people either sat or lay on the floor packed like sardines, using flattened cardboard boxes for beds, or sitting on seats so close their legs were intertwined.

Poignant

“What I saw during the visit was so poignant. Listed on either side of the door were the names of those who had died in the cellars and those who had been shot. The door itself was covered by the villagers by a makeshift calendar, so that they could have some idea of how long they were in there.

“In the end eight townspeople were shot and another eight lost the will to live and died. Please visit Yahidne if you go to Ukraine.”

Professor O’Brien said: “The war crimes of this village were and are being repeated throughout Chernihiv and the rest of Ukraine. After Yahidne, we ventured up to Chernihiv city. The centre of town, Krasna Square, is dominated by a white neo-classical theatre which received a direct missile attack during a performance in August 2023, killing seven people.”

Crater
“Just off the main square there a children’s centre and cinema that was devastated by a direct missile attack in 2024. The crater was so large that it was still enormous even filled with snow when we visited. The building will have to be entirely reconstructed.”

Professor O’Brien said Chernihiv is covered in such sights.

“The north of the oblast, which is right on the border and therefore the site of constant artillery and drone attacks, is now suffering, in particular. Much of the population has been forced out, the forests are now off-limit as there is too much risk of land-mine detonation. The politicians are very worried about how they can rebuild and attract people back after the war. Chernihiv is an agriculturally rich area, but its very future is now being threatened.”

However, he said, the determination shown by the people of Chernihiv to ensure the horrors of war do not define them.

“This winter is the first for years with deep snow falls. It brought out families in large numbers, and many young children had their first experience of sledding in the snow—watching them play was one of the most wonderful sights. Visiting such places is important. This is a community that wants to live, has a rich history and should have great future.”