The war overseas is causing pain for people here in Connecticut. A student and professor at the University of New Haven are closely watching how the Russian invasion of Ukraine is impacting families and friends still in Ukraine.
Images and photos of people trying to make the journey across Ukraine’s western border were captured nearly 5,000 miles away by 14-year-old Liliia Kryvoruchko.
“She was very scared. She was texting me every hour, just, you know, saying that. She hopes everything is going to be okay, that she loves,” Adnrii Kryvoruchko, a senior at the University of New Haven, said.
Kryvoruchko has not seen his sister since she was seven, but when Liliia fled Ukraine alongside her grandmother last week, they were in contact as much as they could be.
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“They had to leave everything behind. I mean the house, and friends, pets. So it was very painful to see,” Kryvoruchko said.
Kryvoruchko has lived in the United States with his parents since graduating high school. He’s now trying to glean as much information as he can from dozens of friends and family members in Ukraine as the conflict unfolds.
“My friend in Kyiv, who was enlisted in army and right now he's in Kyiv fighting, he told me that he's really scared, and he's actually even younger than me,” Kryvoruchko said.
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While his grandfather stayed behind, Kryvoruchko’s sister and grandmother waited in lines miles-long to board a bus to Poland.
“I believe they were about 30 miles, so people had to wait about two days at the border,” Kryvoruchko said. “One of the scariest moments was when she was at the border, and we lost phone connection. We were not in touch for about five or six hours as they were going to Poland. So I was constantly worried.”
The heartbreak of war thousands of miles away hits close to home for Olena Lennon, too. The student and professor share a class, and a homeland under attack.
“My brother and my mother and my grandmother are in eastern Ukraine, I have aunts and uncles, their extended families, nieces and nephews,” Lennon, a political science professor at the University of New Haven, said. “The uncertainty now with, you know, when we'll be able to see our families again, it is really excruciating.”
With family and so many friends still within Ukraine's borders, their concern now is the Russian attack on civilians, and when and how loved ones will be able to flee.
“It's a very dire situation,” Lennon said. “What we're seeing right now is, you know, extremely brutal, punitive, indiscriminate, and, you know, nothing short of war crimes.”
Lennon said the ongoing conflict is something Ukrainians are familiar with, as Ukraine has pushed to hold onto independence and be a part of Western-style democracy since the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991.
“Ukraine is fighting to defend not just its own borders but also to defend the regional and the world order. This war has global implications,” Lennon said.
The ongoing struggle means that even a Ukrainian as young as Kryvoruchko has witnessed firsthand the dire consequences of conflict.
“Back in 2014, right after revolution, I personally know people who died fighting in eastern Ukraine. My neighbor broke his spine during shelling, and another one went missing in action,” he said.
Now faced with war and trapped in a waiting game, they know the country they return to will be vastly different from the country they have called home.
"All the infrastructure is destroyed already by the Russian army, and it's going to take decades to rebuild everything,” Kryvoruchko said. “Next time I go back to Ukraine, I hope to see everyone alive, because I miss my country and I miss my friends."
