“Just a minute – let me see,” he said to me, going out onto the balcony. “We just had an explosion. It seemed to me that he was somewhere in a kilometer or so, but in the city it is difficult to say.
Reynolds, 63, had just spent three days trying to join the defense of Kyiv as a foreign volunteer.
“I was tired of sitting on Pushkinskaya, drinking latte and waiting for the Russians, so I went to the local and national police department,” he said. “I stood in line for seven hours for a Kalashnikov assault rifle. I couldn’t get it. I went out again the next day during curfew and tried to get it but couldn’t. I was told to go home.”
On February 27, as a 40-mile long column of Russian tanks, armored vehicles and artillery began moving from Belarus towards Kyiv, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called for volunteers from around the world to help defend the country from a Russian invasion. By March 3, Zelenskiy said in a Facebook video message: “Ukraine is already welcoming foreign volunteers. The (first) 16,000 are already on their way to defend freedom and life for us and for all.”
Where volunteers come from and how many have arrived cannot be immediately confirmed by independent experts. Ukrainian officials have invited volunteers with previous military and combat experience or those willing to gain such experience. Meanwhile, the Russian Defense Ministry said on Thursday that foreign “mercenaries sent by the West” would not be considered lawful combatants and would not be eligible for POW status. The US State Department has repeatedly urged Americans not to travel to Ukraine. ; Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said Wednesday that Americans who want to help should focus on helping through humanitarian aid organizations. Ukraine legalized the service of foreigners in its armed forces in October 2015, after Russia seized the Crimean peninsula from Ukraine and then supported separatist groups in Donetsk and Luhansk in the Donbass in eastern Ukraine. Those who join are provided with an accelerated path to Ukrainian citizenship.
From then until early this year, there were only a small number of Americans among the thousands of foreigners who served in the Ukrainian army and fought in separatist regions, according to military analysts.
In recent weeks, as Russia rallied forces and then launched its latest assault on Ukraine, news outlets in North America and Europe reported on people willing to volunteer to help defend the country. The Ukrainian government has set up a process for them to join the International Legion of Territorial Defense of Ukraine by submitting an application through the embassies or consulates of Ukraine.
But another thing is those foreigners who already live in Ukraine – those who have not yet joined the more than a million Ukrainians who fled the fighting and left the country. The US embassy in Kyiv moved to Lviv, near the Polish border, as did the embassies of Great Britain, France and Japan. The UN also withdrew most of its personnel from the city.
When I called Reynolds, it was the first time we had spoken in decades. We knew each other when we were kids; our maternal grandparents were close neighbors; and when his family came, we played together.
After we phoned and talked for a bit, I asked Reynolds if he knew of any other expatriates who might want to talk. He said he knew, only to discover when he held out his hand that they were all gone. Recently in the evening he saw four cars in the yard of his house. “Before, there were 20 or 30,” he said. “A lot of people have left. Everyone who has a car took it. I think half of Kyiv has left.”
After a few months in Beijing, Reynolds moved to Kyiv 15 months ago to invest in local businesses such as a biogas plant that produces renewable fuels. He also planned to transfer part of the production of his core business – selling hats under his Mad Bomber brand – from China to Ukraine. (The name he came up with 40 years ago refers to his approach to ski jumping in the 1980s.)
Reynolds started his business right out of college after a trip to China where he bought souvenirs and other merchandise and then sold it back home. In the early 1980s, he began selling fur hats from China in the US, Europe, and the Soviet Union, traveling frequently. “They sold like crazy,” he said.
When he first came to Ukraine at the end of 2020, his youngest son, who was then 15 years old, came with him. They made a 10-day trip in a rented car from Kyiv to Lviv and the Carpathians. According to him, his teenage daughter also spent a semester at an international school in Kyiv.
But over the past few months, as the likelihood of a renewed Russian attack on Ukraine grew and then became a reality, many of Reynolds’ friends and family have urged him, either directly or via social media posts, to return to the United States. four children aged 16 to 24, and he is divorcing his wife.
When I contacted him a few days ago via Facebook, the first response I got was from his Virginia mother: “Bob, please don’t encourage him.”
“I think he’s nuts,” his sister Katie Reynolds told me over the phone. “My parents are completely stressed and very upset, and he is adamant and I don’t know why.”
She was particularly thrilled that her brother had flown from Kyiv to Helsinki shortly before the Russian attack, and a couple of days later turned around and returned to Kyiv.
“I have many Ukrainian friends with children,” said Brent Reynolds. “I decided that I would not leave if the Russians came. It was more of an emotional than a logical decision. I just felt like you don’t leave friends in a fight.”
Like his Ukrainian friends, Reynolds took refuge in the nearest metro station – the Teatralnaya stop, not far from the main Khreshchatyk street – when the defense sirens warned of shelling from Russia. His children used their smartphone apps to show him where Russian strikes were being carried out in and around Kiev.
After two days of trying to volunteer and get a rifle in Kyiv, Reynolds learned that weapons were being distributed in Khostomel, 25 kilometers from the city, not far from where Russian troops, including attack helicopters, had recently fought for control of the airfield. Reynolds, who has regularly competed in triathlon in recent years, was cycling towards Gostomel, but was stopped at a military checkpoint.
“I ended up waiting and talking to one of the commanders,” he said. “I grew up in a military family, I get along with the Ukrainian military. We laughed and talked a little. They said, “No, go home.”
Reynolds tries not to photograph soldiers or anything military. “I checked my camera a couple of times at checkpoints,” he said. “Everyone is nervous.”
In recent days, Ukrainian officials have warned of the presence in Kyiv of pro-Russian agents believed to be engaged in espionage or sabotage.
“There were a lot more bomb blasts today,” Reynolds said Friday. He left his apartment to help a friend and her children get to the train station so they could evacuate to Lviv. In recent days, as reported by CNN and other news organizations, thousands of Kievans daily crowd the station in an attempt to move west. But a large number of other residents remain in Kyiv, trapped for various reasons.
“I tell my girlfriends, ‘Get out,'” Reynolds said. “They all have kids, so go away.”
Doesn’t he think he should take his own advice?
“It’s unsettling, it’s hard to wait for the Russians to come,” Reynolds said. “The city is an armed besieged fortress. I don’t believe it will fall unless Zelenskiy or the leadership decide to surrender to avoid the bombing.”
Reynolds said morale among the Ukrainians he speaks to remains good. Reynolds said that if he did decide to leave, he would bike the 300 kilometers to Moldova, a trip he thought would take two days.
But he’s not going to leave anytime soon.