Ukraine: Scenes from the ground
(NewsNation) — A quick flip through my passport and short glance up at me. The border guard's eyes met mine for hardly more than a moment.
Then.
Thump.
The sound of a stamp imprinting into the thin page serves as the wordless welcome back into Ukraine. The crossing from Poland was complete, and we were off.
Greetings from war-torn Ukraine, where I will be for the next few weeks. It's my first time back here since the start of the war in 2022.
VIDEO: Back in Ukraine
Some things are eerily similar, others strikingly different.
For example, as we passed through Lutsk just over the border, sirens started to blare. I had just come from Israel during the so-called 12-Day War where Israelis were taking the risks quite seriously. Those 12 days, we ran into the bunkers countless times, joined by civilians holding their loved ones tightly as tears streamed down their cheeks, fearing the lethality of Iran's capabilities.
Here in Lutsk? No such fear. The sirens didn't stop the young couple we saw from taking photos outside the castle in town. Nobody ran for shelter. While alerts went off, they encompassed a wide region and the average Ukrainian there (in this case rightly) believed the threat wasn't coming their way.
That's different than the early days of the war. I remember being here when places like Lutsk, Lviv and Ivano-Frankivsk would be routinely targeted, especially sensitive sites like the airports.
So, that's an evident change. People in Western Ukraine, at face value, feel largely safe as life attempts to carry on in the new normal.
But tonight, our team is heading to Kyiv, which we'll be using as our main base of operations. The capital has been quiet the last few evenings, but nevertheless every night people barricade themselves underground in the subway stations. That's a different new normal than in Lutsk.
Something that hasn't changed? The checkpoints we encounter every few miles along the highway. The pressure was on in the early days to root out and identify Russian spies and saboteurs. That objective remains the same, roughly three and a half years intothe war.
VIDEO: What's New, What's the Same?
All of next week, we will have some exclusive reporting on NewsNation that we'll be sharing with you across our platforms. We'll be showing you a different side of the war than you've seen in the past — and why American officials are looking on anxiously as war changes rapidly before our eyes.
But of course, there's the elephant in the room: There's a new president in the White House. There are new foreign policy aims. And there is a renewed push to bring this war to an end.
Just this week, President Trump announced he is imposing a 'new deadline' on Russia to make progress towards peace.
'I'm going to make a new deadline of about 10 or 12 days from today,' the president said to reporters in Scotland on Monday. 'There's no reason in waiting. It's 50 days, I want to be generous, but we just don't see any progress being made.'
That would make the deadline sometime around August 7-9, based upon the president's words.
Will Russia comply? Do Ukrainians believe peace is possible? How are things different with the 47th president sitting in the Oval Office? All questions we hope to answer.
But I'd like to open this up to you all as well. What questions do you have about Ukraine? From the geopolitics to the day to day, I'd like to know where your curiosity is guiding you.
When I was 25 years old, I found myself on a plane to Europe the day Russia invaded. That experience changed me forever. I documented many of those stories in my upcoming book, 'Lessons from the Front,' which you can pre-order through Amazon, Barnes and Noble or Bloomsbury.
I'm interested to find out what else is new and what has changed since my last time here in Ukraine. If you have a question or observation, please write to me at rsherman@newsnationnow.com or through any of my social media channels such as Facebook, X, Instagram or TikTok.
More to come soon.
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