Joe Lindsley is an American journalist living in Ukraine and working for the Ukrainian Freedom News. Lindsley is currently in Lviv, Ukraine which is very close to the border with Poland and has become a safer area harboring many Ukrainians.
Lindsley came to Ukraine in March of 2020 to speak at a media conference at a university in Lviv and ended up staying.
“I planned to be here for two weeks,” Lindsley explains. “There are some great journalists I knew here who created a new model of media inspired by Ukraine's 2014 revolution. And then the borders closed for the pandemic. I was stuck for a couple months and then I decided I really liked this. It was actually, I think, the freest country I've ever been in the sense of free speech, free spirited people. So many things that we love as Americans I found here. And so I stayed.”
Lindsley had planned to return to the U.S. last year, but as tensions in Ukraine rose with the threat of Russia invading that country growing by the day, Lindsley began to have second thoughts.
“Maybe last fall, I was starting to wonder, maybe, should I go back to America? Then as soon as this, the potential threat from Russia, you sort of became part of the news,” Lindsley told WCCO’s Paul and Jordana Show. “I said, no, no, I'm meant to be here. There's a reason why I have two years of experience in this country, understanding the people and the culture. And so I have to be here to help share their story.”
Lindsley says the experiences in some Ukrainians cities attacked by Russian have been "awful and terrible". He says the Ukrainian cities he has visited are full of energy, filled with people who have embraced freedom and hope for their future, and have been shocked by the Russian aggression towards them.
“The Russians have targeted civilians and we can share videos of some of that, that awful horror,” Lindsley says. “I'm always in touch with friends and, and contacts on the ground here in the Lviv area and there is a strange atmosphere. I mean, this city in many ways is like New Orleans. You always heard music in the streets, even in the pandemic. And now there's none of that. People walk with focus and mission and everyone is doing everything they can to help the rest of the country and to prepare for whatever might come this way.”
Even in a relatively safe city like Lviv, there are signs of war every day. These are experiences that free European countries haven’t seen since the Blitzkrieg era of Nazi warfare over eight decades ago. Images of bombed buildings, civilians huddling in shelters and troops marching through the streets of free countries is shocking to see.
“We have an air raid alarm usually once or twice a day,” Lindsley shares. “So people go down into the shelters. There have been stories of Russian saboteurs operating in the streets and the police in the military move very swiftly to put an end to that, but this city now is safe and it's sort of a staging area to protect the rest of the country.”
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What has become clear to the world, and especially to Lindsley inside Ukraine, is the strength and resilience of the Ukrainian people.
“They earned their freedom in 2014 by standing in the streets, withstanding the bullets of the former secret police,” Lindsley says about the Ukrainians. “And I don't see people giving that up very easily. They have a motivation to fight. Whereas the Russian soldiers that are sent here usually, you know, they come from poor villages. They have so many videos of Russian soldiers, not knowing why they were sent here, thinking they were on a training mission even. They don't have the motivation. They have the numbers, but not the motivation. And so I think this fight's not going to be easy and it's going to go on for a long while.”
There is fear of course. Fear that Putin will increase the pressure inside Ukraine. But Lindsley says Ukrainian civilians are ready for it, and training for that scenario. He says this is a population that is ready to defend what is theirs.
“I know entire IT firms here in Lviv that are simply training with weapons every day, and preparing to join the territorial defense in other cities where they're needed,” Lindsley tells WCCO. “There's a great sense that in Kyiv something awful is looming and the city now is not totally surrounded, in fact refugees can still come outside, can still leave Kyiv. The United Nations left yesterday, which is a concern. People there are ready to defend their city and people from all over Ukraine are going to Kyiv ready for whatever assault the Russians might have planned.”
Lindsley also shares hope. He says it is the energy of the people that tells him they will resist the Russians invasion of their land. Once that initial shock wore off, they were ready to save their freedom.
“When I talk with my Ukrainian friends and colleagues, I really only find energy,” says Lindsley. “You know, everyone is in this together. I think when this started last week, the first 24 hours was a sucker punch and there was a lot of crying and people were hugging each other. Then they got a rest that night and the next day, we all woke up and said, right, what does each of us have to do to get through this?”
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