Ukraine Trek - Trip from Warsaw to Lviv

By Steve Richards

​My trek from Warsaw to Lviv started calmly enough. I had to go from the Holiday Inn in Warsaw to the bus station, but I mistakenly got taken to the train station. So I then walked to the bus station in a bit of a panic, and I wound up getting a bus ticket to Lviv which would have gotten me in sometime later in the evening--however, I missed the bus. The next bus wasn’t going to be until midnight, but in the meantime, I met an ex-soldier from the United States. He was on his way to Lviv as well, so we got together and through his presence (he was all outfitted with military gear so he was pretty obvious), people came up to him including a Brazilian soldier who was also on his way to Lviv to fight. Before I knew it the American met a former Ukrainian army officer who offered to give us all a ride in his yellow minibus.  

Next thing I knew I was packed in the minibus with his family, the two soldiers, a ton of supplies, and a few other passengers and spent the next eight hours on the road to Lviv through the Polish countryside.  

Around midnight we stopped at a well-stocked Polish grocery store near the Ukraine border and picked up some groceries (we got gas in Ukraine as it was cheaper) and next thing you know we were at the Ukrainian border. 

We then ran a gauntlet of checkpoints, armed soldiers, police officers, border agents, and others. We had to show our passports I believe four times at various checkpoints before getting across the border.

Once in Ukraine, it was a very dark and lonely stretch of road until we got to Lviv. There were miscellaneous checkpoints along the way. The Ukrainian army was definitely in control. We got to Lviv which turned out to be not bombed out. We checked into our hotel, and now, here we are.