When General Andrii Nebytov first heard that Howard Buffett was coming to Kyiv region, he was tired. It was eight months after the beginning of Russia’s full-scale invasion, and the area was still raw from bombed buildings, torture chambers, and mass graves. On top of these, Nebytov was dealing with the fact that the invaders had particularly targeted police stations and police officers.
Then came the call from Ukraine’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. An important American visitor was coming. “They told me he’s a VIP and that he might be able to help,” Nebytov recalled, but then added, "I didn't have time to look him up on the Internet."
When they met, Nebytov was in for a surprise. Buffett was not merely a philanthropist, he had a law enforcement background himself. He had served as sheriff of Macon County, Illinois, after years as an auxiliary deputy and undersheriff.
When the two men drove through areas freed from Russian occupation, Buffett saw bombed police stations and damaged police training facilities. Importantly, he was not seeing them only as a prospective donor. He was seeing them as a former sheriff who understood what a functioning police force means to a community. Rebuilding those stations was not just about repairing walls and roofs. It was about restoring order, safety and public confidence.
Buffett knew that Putin targets police because, in wartime, police keep a country from coming apart. Destroy the police station, kill or intimidate the officers, and a town becomes easier to control. Looters, human traffickers and Russian agents have room to operate. Fear replaces order.
That is why destroying police stations and killing police officers has become part of Russia’s invasion playbook. The goal is not only to damage buildings or kill individual officers. It is to create fear and disorder. Since Putin rose to power, Russian forces have fought in Chechnya, invaded Georgia, seized Crimea, fueled war in eastern Ukraine, intervened in Syria, sent troops into Kazakhstan and launched the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Again and again, the pattern is the same: break the institutions that keep society functioning, then exploit the chaos that follows.
Nebytov and Buffett both understood that rebuilding police stations in Ukraine was not simply reconstruction. In a town emerging from Russian occupation, a restored police station means looters and predators no longer have free rein. It means civilians can report crimes, witnesses can come forward, and Russian agents can be hunted down before they do more damage. Most of all, it means safety is possible again.
That is why rebuilding a police station frustrates one of Putin’s central goals. He wants Ukrainians to feel abandoned, exposed and afraid. “The Russians are searching for what causes the most pain and chaos,” Nebytov told me.
Buffett has helped rebuild several police stations, but one of his most engaging projects is something more unexpected: a veterinary and training center that may be among the most advanced in Europe. Many of the dogs are Belgian Malinois, chosen and trained according to temperament. Some learn to find explosives, weapons, drugs or missing children. Others, the unusually gentle and sociable ones, become emotional support dogs or help soldiers and civilians recover from trauma.
That range of work says something important about policing in wartime Ukraine. Police are not only arresting criminals. They are finding mines, protecting evidence, helping children, calming traumatized people and giving communities the feeling that someone is still there to help. Their work is about keeping a society human while an invader is doing everything possible to brutalize it.
Putin targets police first because police are what make order possible. Order makes witnesses brave enough to speak, officers able to gather evidence, civilians able to evacuate and criminals afraid to take over. That is why Nebytov rebuilds police capacity: because every restored station tells a frightened town that someone is still there to serve and protect. In Kyiv region, Russia tried to make the Ukrainian state disappear. Nebytov, Buffett and a new generation of police dogs are making sure it does not.
Americans who want Ukraine to survive should understand this: supporting Ukraine is not only about weapons. It is also about helping Ukrainians preserve the ordinary institutions that make civilized life possible. A police station, a trained officer, a dog that can find explosives or comfort a traumatized child -- these are all part of the same struggle. They are how a free society refuses to disappear.
Mitzi Perdue is a journalist and war correspondent. She has reported extensively from Ukraine and is the co-founder of Mental Help Global, an initiative using AI to expand access to mental health support in conflict-affected regions.
