Ambassadors from Western international locations, together with their diplomatic groups — led by the USA — pulled out of Ukraine weeks in the past. However not Cichocki. A few of his crew of greater than 80 Polish diplomats have moved to the western metropolis of Lviv, the place they keep a working consulate, or again to Warsaw. However many stay by his facet within the capital.
Nonetheless, throughout his interview with BuzzFeed Information on Thursday, there have been indicators that Cichocki is anxious in regards to the Russian risk. Outdoors his workplace door sat a helmet and bulletproof vest adorned with a red-and-white Polish flag patch. And he wore what he known as a “go bag” with “vital paperwork” on his hip. His blood kind was scrawled in everlasting marker on his left arm.
“I don’t need to find yourself within the incorrect coffin,” he quipped.
As he spoke, a volley of rockets pummeled the outskirts of Kyiv. “Let’s open the window so we are able to pay attention,” Cichocki mentioned.
He pulled out his telephone to verify an app that’s presupposed to notify residents when Russian missiles are incoming.
“I like this app, however it’s all the time two minutes late, which is a very long time when Iskanders come,” he mentioned in reference to Russia’s short-range hypersonic ballistic missiles which have been used in opposition to Ukraine.
Cichocki mentioned he had not been requested, not to mention ordered, by his bosses in Warsaw to depart Kyiv. “There are issues you possibly can’t do from a distance,” he mentioned, including that he was nonetheless participating “24/7” with members of Ukraine’s authorities and different Western diplomats.
“Leaving now could be one thing that might lower [Ukrainians’] spirits,” he mentioned.
