Ukrainian trains are punctual, and they are pleasant. It is not that I am in any way uncomfortable, or afraid. Heading in the direction of a line just makes me thoughtful, as an American. As I get ready to go to sleep, I find myself thinking that Americans are also speeding towards a line
Sunrise in Zaporizhzhia, TS
Americans back home are not entering a geographic Russia, of course, or a zone of Russian occupation; but we are hurtling towards having a Russian-type regime. I don’t even have in mind the alignment with Russian interests, the fact that so many members or our new regime have financial and emotional connections with Russia, or the fact that quite a few of our policies look as though they were designed in the Kremlin. That is a very bad sign, of course.
But I have in mind something deeper: the transformation of our public and private lives. As in Russia, we have let local newspapers and local media die. As in Russia, their place was taken by a few commercial operations. As in Russia, the media are owned by oligarchs, who then become close to government or submit to it (not all of the media in America, of course, are submitting, but far too many are). As in Russia, our daily lives are flooded by such a rushing river of contradictory lies that we have trouble knowing where we are, let alone what we should do. As in Russia, a president supported by oligarchs and their media power is trying to humiliate the other branches of government. The executive is seeking to marginalize the legislature — forever — by ruling without passing laws. The executive is seeking to marginalize the judiciary — forever — by ignoring court rulings. Those things, of course, have already happened in Russia.
The Russian government rejoices in such changes in the U.S., and has a hand in them. But the problem is not Russia. The problem is us. It is as though we have boarded a train without thinking about the destination. The windows are shaded, and the conductors have purposes of their own, which have nothing to do with our dignity, rights, or humanity. I worry that we will not see that line approaching, that no one will get out, that no one will stop the train.
I am one American in a train at night in a foreign country at war, heading in the direction of the front, going to a city that is attacked by Russia. But I know that I won’t be crossing any lines. It is nearing midnight, and aside from the sound of the wheels on the rails, all is calm. I know where this train will stop. I am traveling with people I know, visiting people I trust, aiming to do something that makes sense — helping to celebrate the opening of an underground school in Zaporizhzhia (Russia targets schools with missiles, and so they must go underground, in a literal sense). As I close my tablet and go to sleep, I am safer than every single one of you reading this in the United States, and indeed safer than I would be in the United States. My train will stop in five hours. But America will keep hurtling.
Two cars down sleeps a Ukrainian soldier. Spare a thought for him and for the other Ukrainian soldiers on my train, on their way to the front. They are, in every sense of the word, holding a line, not only for themselves and their country, but for all of us. But for their resistance, it would be a worse and more tyrannical world. They have been giving us a chance to stay on our side of the line for three years now, and at horrible cost. By comparison to what they have done for us, we have done very little for them.
Think about what lines you will cross and that you will not cross. They are not as obvious, perhaps, as a line on a map, or a line of trenches at the front. But we cannot pretend that they are not there. And if we cross them, we will no longer be ourselves.
Completed 10 February 2025, Kyiv-Zaporizhzhia train
Published 12 February 2025, Odesa