Hanna Tverdokhlib has held her telephone as if it had been glued to her hand because the Russian invasion of Ukraine final week.
When she isn’t watching information on it, she is texting her cousins and shut buddies again house or checking their Fb posts, hoping her cousins are nonetheless secure within the bunker beneath their Kiev residence constructing, which is the place they shelter when the sirens go off.
Ready to listen to again from them is like ready for demise, mentioned Tverdokhlib, 37. “We’re asking them every single day, texting, ‘How are you guys?’ They offer me a number of phrases. It’s tremendous laborious.”
She, her husband and their son left their house in a small western metropolis of Ukraine in 2020 and moved to Lengthy Seashore, the place she stiches collectively earnings from her jobs as a nursing assistant, video curator and Lyft driver. Her husband works as a contract photographer.
They’re amongst greater than 1 million folks within the U.S. who report Ukrainian ancestry, in keeping with the Census, with sizable populations in New York Metropolis, Chicago, Seattle, Sacramento and Los Angeles. Many are attempting to donate cash and provides to their family members in Ukraine, looking for recommendation from immigration attorneys about how one can get household right here and pleading for world leaders to intervene extra forcefully.
Russian forces pressed their warfare Thursday on Ukraine, seizing a strategic seaport and threatening to overhaul a serious vitality hub at the same time as the 2 sides met in Belarus and negotiated secure corridors to evacuate residents. The United Nations says 1 million folks have fled Ukraine because the Russian assault began.
From midway world wide, although, Tverdokhlib feels helpless — and responsible for being secure in america — as she watches the warfare unfold, and indignant at what she calls Ukraine’s “monster neighbor,” Russia. She tries to remain calm when her texts aren’t instantly returned. However the psychological toll and tears that observe are bearing on her.
“We’re secure right here within the U.S. But it surely’s not simpler. Your thoughts can simply explode,” she mentioned.
So she goes to rallies in Southern California to point out her help for Ukraine, handing out fliers with QR codes looking for donations. Her 7-year-old son, Volodymyr, attracts hearts and messages of help on blue and yellow poster board, for the colours of Ukraine’s flag.
“Russia doesn’t care about anybody,” he says.
On Tuesday evening, the household lit candles and positioned indicators across the Ukrainian genocide memorial in Grand Park, which marks the deaths of tens of millions from the Soviet-engineered famine in 1932-33.
“We attempt to pray. I don’t know what can — what can else we do?” Tverdokhlib mentioned.
She mentioned the hardest a part of all is listening to what her cousin’s youngsters ask: “Mother, would they kill us?”