When Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine almost three years ago, people around the world were moved by the stories and images coming out of Eastern Europe. Among them was Dr. Kent Kleppinger, a pediatrician from Laramie who felt compelled to lend a hand, despite having no personal connection to Ukraine.
Kleppinger previously talked to Wyoming Public Radio about what it was like for Ukrainians celebrating Christmas — a festival of lights — under the threat of missile strikes.
He’s now been to the war-torn region three separate times helping out a children’s hospital in Kyiv. Kleppinger spoke with Wyoming Public Radio’s Jeff Victor about what it’s like getting involved with a war on the other side of the world.
Editor’s Note: This transcript was lightly edited for clarity and comprehension.
Jeff Victor: How soon did you decide that you needed to go there?
Kent Kleppinger: I remember seeing images on the news of mothers, with children in their arms, running for their lives. That was the image that stuck. Sure, they showed some war footage and that was terrible, too, but all of these people were literally running for their lives. In the news stories, they were talking about how Russia was bombing train stations, bombing trains, knowing that they were full of refugees. Something just snapped.
It's one of those moments where you have two voices that are supposed to pop up — one that says, ‘Go do something’ and then, about two seconds later, a second voice pops up and says, ‘Are you crazy? You're not thinking this through. Stop and think, calm down.’ That voice never showed up. Literally.
JV: Never?
KK: I just literally had this voice saying, ‘You need to go do something’ and nothing on the other side trying to stop me.
Then I did the craziest thing I've ever done in my life. I googled the Ukraine government, and I found the Ministry of Health and a phone number. And, sure as heck, somebody answers the phone. And I'm talking in English. They're talking in Ukrainian. I don't understand. I don't speak Ukrainian. And the phone goes silent. I went, ‘Oh no, I'm cut off,’ and all of a sudden, this man is on the phone, speaking in perfect English, and it's the Assistant Minister of Health talking to me. And I'm saying, ‘I want to come over and help. How can I get there?’ He goes: ‘Just come.’
So I made copies of things like my medical diploma, my medical license, and all those kinds of papers, and put them on a thumb drive and packed a bag and flew to Warsaw, Poland. You have to take a train into Kyiv. You obviously can't fly, you'll be shot down.
JV: Were you mostly doing standard checkups? What do they have you doing?
KK: I saw everything. Some acute illnesses. I saw some follow-ups of chronic illnesses. Some people brought their child in just for a physical. So it was just a variety of things. [I] saw heart murmurs and kids who had respiratory illnesses and asthma and stuff like that.
JV: What's it like doing work in a war-torn country?
KK: Well, the actual war, the front, is about the same distance away as Southern Denver or Colorado Springs [from Larmie]. So yes, you're in the area, but you're not on the front. But at the same time, there's still Russia shooting missiles all the time into cities all over Ukraine, all the way to the west side. So just about every night sirens go off, and they actually have an app that you download on the phone, giving you about a 20-minute warning that rockets are on their way to where you're located, and you have that much time to find shelter.
JV: Wow.
KK: The first night I was there, on the second trip, about eight o'clock at night, I went down to Independence Square [in Kyiv], just to see people. I look up in the sky and I see: poof, poof, poof, poof, poof. Five of them. And I went, ‘Oh God, we just shot down some missiles. How cool.’ And I thought. ‘Holy crap, they were firing missiles at us. Maybe I shouldn't be out here.’ And everybody was calm and just going about their business and walking around on the streets. And I thought, ‘If I see them running for the subway entrance, I'll go with them.’
JV: That's wild, that you can actually see it, and also that clearly everyone there knows when it's a threat.
KK: Well, kind of. A lot of the people are so conditioned to missile attacks now that even though the missile attacks are coming, and even though you or I would seek shelter, they've taken on this attitude that's like: ‘Well, I've made it this far, I'll be okay.’ I think they get a sense of false security about it.
The weird fact is, having never served in the military or been in a war of any kind, you have this odd understanding of what war is like. War’s for them, not for me. It's over there, not here. So you kind of turn into this odd spectator standing, watching it happen, but not being in it.
JV: Do you feel less like a spectator now?
KK: Oh yeah, I have really close friends in Kyiv. I have some friends in Poltava, in Odessa, and some of the other cities that are being shelled every night. So I still have the app going on my phone, and I have their cities listed, and a couple times I'll contact them after they've had air raids and make sure they're safe and doing well. But yes, I know people over there. It's now personal.
JV: Having that connection, is it hard to be here, to be so away from it?
KK: Yes and no. I feel like I've done what I set out to do over there, and even if I don't go back into Ukraine next summer, if the war ended tomorrow, I've told all the family I will take them over to Ukraine, and we'll tour the country and just look at its history and how beautiful a country it is.
JV: Reports from this fall put the number of dead and injured from both sides at over a million, with another 12,000 civilian deaths. The war might not end anytime soon.
KK: No.
JV: So what's next for you?
KK: I don't know. This isn't something where I'm campaigning to go look for the next war and go jump into an area like Palestine or Sudan or something. Literally this hooked me in a way that I wasn't expecting to have happened. People go, ‘Why should we care?’ Russia's president, Putin, Dictator Putin, has said that if he can beat Ukraine, he will erase it as a country, as a language, as a culture, and it won't exist. We shouldn't let a dictator jump in and erase an entire country.
So I would hope this country can stay firm in their support for this war. They want aid. They don't want us to come in and do their fighting for them. They want to be a free and unique people and to exist and we should help them do it without reservation.
