BLITZ INTERVIEW: Gordon Siebring - an American farmer in Ukraine with a few home truths to tell.

This down to earth American has spent decades in Ukraine, and is in awe of the Ukrainians defending their country, but disgusted by the corruption he sees and the slowness of Western support.

(Gorden Siebring in better times, in a field of soybeans that he planted and harvested during the summer of 2021)

Where are you from? How and why did you end up in Ukraine?

I am originally from central Iowa (Albion). For most of my time in Ukraine, I have been flying back and forth, at least 4 or 5 times a year, so was spending about half my year in Ukraine and half in the US. But since Covid, I have been here nearly non-stop.

I came to Ukraine in 1993 in answer to an ad in The Des Moines Register looking for 100 Iowa farmers to go to Ukraine; we were window dressing on a very flawed Export-Import Bank-backed deal supposedly to help Ukrainian agriculture... but it, like so many programs went way sideways. I volunteered for 3 weeks, and then 5 of the 100 (myself included) were asked to stay on the rest of that summer as paid employees. I really enjoyed it and fell in love with Ukraine. I spent most of that summer traveling the southern oblasts, from Besarabia in Odesa Oblast to Kherson Oblast, as an agronomist/equipment supervisor.  That fall, the company was ‘invited out' of Ukraine, but I picked up a job with a small company operating near Kakhovka in Kherson Oblast - in fact, I had an apartment in Kahovka and could see the vast reservoir that is no more. A year later, I started an equipment import business, bringing in used US farm equipment, refurbishing it, and marketing it.

In 2015, I picked up this farming operation here in the far north. Due to the first Russian invasion in 2014 and the consequent devaluation of the hryvnia, our equipment and seed corn business lost a lot of money, and things were not looking too shiny for the future. I now own and operate a 5,000-acre farming operation in Ukraine's northern region, just beyond the Chernobyl exclusion area, near the Belarus border.

What kind of work did you do previously?  Where?

 I was a dairy farmer in Iowa until we sold out in 1992.

(Rocket attack just on the other side of Gordon’s field, the first week of the war)

How has the war changed your life? Changed you personally?

The war economy has wrecked havoc on my financial life; the first two years of war cost us what we had worked to build up for the previous 6 or 7 years. But we hang in there and hope to recover.

I don't know if the war has changed me a lot personally—perhaps it taught me perseverance—but I have developed a deep admiration for the brave men and women serving. I have been down to the front three or four times, and each time, I am in awe of the people I meet fighting for their country and their freedom.

(Swine operation a few kilometers from Gordon’s place, hit in the first week of the war)

What has surprised you most about Ukrainians these past couple of years? Good or bad? 

I admire the bravery and true Cossack spirit I have met in so many down on the front. This past spring, I took down an ATV and an older van to donate to an artillery unit; I sat in their room in an abandoned house, which they had repaired using the wood from 105mm shell boxes (given by the US they had paneled the whole interior of the house with these) and listened to them in details – this was at the very time that Tim Johnson and Matt Gaetz and the rest of those morons where holding up funding for Ukraine – how these guys had between 6 and 8 rounds (French made) of 105 shells to use per day (down from 100 or 150) - and yet they still went down into battle and did what they could each day.

Yet there are still things that discourage me, to be frank.

The farm kitchen cook we have has an injured 24 year old son in Kyiv; she had to pay a $5,000 bribe just to get his wound classified at the 'proper category' for his injury, so he would be assured of his 10,000 hryvnias/month pension. 

Just unthinkable: a brave man injured in the head (shell fragment) in Donbas - and some *sshole bureaucrat wants to make $5,000 off his sacrifice! Zelensky needs to be doing his 'front line' recruiting from among this corrupt class of bureaucrat!

The men hiding out from conscription is discouraging to me: just in our little village alone, we have lost five brave young men in the war. I can't imagine what it is like to be a parent of one of those men - and watch the other local 'knotheads' hang out smoking cigarettes and drinking vodka and avoiding the draft police.

I find the corrupt politicians and bureaucrats very discouraging. I hope that after the war, some of the brave Azov types will form a 'disciplinary brigade' and bring justice down around the necks of these cowards who are not only sheltered from the war but also profiting greatly from it.

Truly, if the US citizens knew the full scale of the corruption (and I am glad they don't), they would cut off funding tomorrow.

What are your plans?

I plan to 'ride this thing out' and contribute to Ukraine's rebuilding. (You and I already know it will contain mountains of corruption, but…)

(Homes destroyed in the local village, the first days of the invasion)

How do you see the war ending and Ukraine returning to a ‘normal life’?

We see pretty close to normal life in many places in Ukraine now. You won't see a huge influx of refugees returning from Europe - Ukraine will rebuild with the 35 or so million here now.  Normal life will begin to return to farms this year, as thanks to the military clearing the 'scum' out of the Black Sea we can now trade grain and actually corn now is above Iowa prices! I think agriculture will be back to normal within 2 to 3 years (minus lots of good farmland lost to the explosion of the Kakhovka dam and tens of thousands of mined acres of land that will take years to clean up).

I think the war would already be over had the west provided the needed arms at the right time - and not tried to dictate to Ukraine how to fight the war (like the folly of the 2023 counteroffensive shoved down the throats of our military brass by powers at be in the west).

I think it is going to end probably within the next six months - just due to the orcs running out of steam (but don't take my predictions for much - I am the same guy who denied it up until the morning of the invasions, that Russia would ever invade Ukraine).

Tell us one thing you don’t think people abroad know about Ukraine – but they really should?

Having lived both sides of 'the pond', honestly, I think the Ukrainian people have a stronger desire and determination to keep their freedom and liberty then those in the US (the average citizen). 

I see the sacrifice so many people have made in the war, and I am in awe. I see how it is not 18- —and 19-year-olds (like in Vietnam) fighting this war—it is everyone from small business owners to athletes, mechanics, greenhouse owners, farmers, and common people of all ages (what was it I heard not long ago—the average soldier age was 43?), down fighting for their freedom and liberty.