On Wednesday evening, Olena Lenczuk, a member of the Ukrainian Congress Committee in America who works in Crimson Financial institution, was listening to a livestream of Archbishop Daniel of the St. Sophia Ukrainian Orthodox Theological Seminary in South Sure Brook main a moleben, an intersessional prayer service, for Ukraine.  

“As this livestream goes on, I don’t know what’s taking place proper now in Ukraine,” Archbishop Daniel stated, referring to the troop actions ordered by Russian President Vladimir Putin surrounding Ukraine. “The U.S. intelligence is telling us that the assault is eminent. It might occur at any given second. My dad and mom stay in Ukraine.”  

As he stated that, Lenczuk obtained a textual content from her son.

“Mother, they’re coming into Mariupol, and so they’re coming into Donetsk.”

Lenczuk stated she started to cry, worrying about her household and pals in Ukraine, together with a 95-year-old aunt who was separated from the remainder of her household throughout the Nazi invasion in World Conflict II. 

Olena Lenczuk is a Ukrainian American dental hygienist in Red Bank, NJ.

Halyna Lojko, a member of the Assumption Ukrainian Catholic Church who lives in Marlboro, stated she was returning residence from her husband’s seventy fifth birthday dinner, once they turned on the TV and noticed the invasion of Ukraine. 

“We’ve been principally on the TV all evening lengthy. Little catnaps right here, whereas my husband stayed up. After which I catnapped,” Lojko stated. “Someplace towards the morning we heard there have been bombings, and I simply listened since then religiously as a result of my household is again there. My husband’s household is there.” 

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Round 11 a.m., Lojko known as her husband’s household after which her circle of relatives in Ukraine. 

Their households reacted with “tears and simply disbelief, and the way might it’s taking place once more?” Lojko stated, her voice shaking. 

After the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia in 1917, Ukraine was briefly impartial however quickly turned a part of the Soviet Union. Through the Nineteen Thirties underneath Soviet dictator Josef Stalin, the Holodomor, a man-made famine, killed tens of millions of Ukrainians.

Throughout World Conflict II, the Nazis invaded from the west and Soviet Russians fought again from the east. Ukraine turned impartial after the 1992 collapse of the Soviet Union. In 1994, the Budapest Memorandum was signed by the U.S., the U.Ok. and Russia that assured safety if Ukraine and two different international locations gave up their nuclear weapons. 

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In 2013, former Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych declined to take steps for nearer relations with the European Union, which sparked the Maidan revolution. Over 100 protestors died, and Yanukovych was faraway from workplace.

Putin noticed the transfer to turn out to be nearer to Europe as a transfer away from Russia. In 2014, he annexed Crimea and supported armed separatists in Donetsk and Luhansk. On Wednesday, he despatched Russian troops all all through Ukraine. 

Vladimir Kowaliwskyj, member of the St. Stephen Ukrainian Catholic Church in Toms River, was born in 1947 in a displaced individuals camp in Germany after World Conflict II. Each his dad and mom had been taken from Ukraine to Germany by the Nazis. His mom labored on a farm and his father labored in a coal mine. 

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He stated he noticed parallels between Putin and Adolf Hitler of their assaults on Ukraine. 

“On a regular basis individuals simply wish to be left alone and be capable to stay their quiet democratic life versus residing in a dictatorship,” Kowaliwskyj stated. 

Halyna Lojko at her home Friday, Feb. 25, 2022 in Morganville, NJ.

Lojko stated her nephew in Ukraine was on the final steps of getting a visa to the U.S., when the U.S. Embassy within the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv closed earlier this month. He was planning to see his household in Pennsylvania. 

Lojko stated her nephew’s household at present is hoping to “trip it out.” 

Her husband’s cousin in Ukraine was scheduled for surgical procedure this week, however it was delayed. 

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“She’s strolling round with a bag on her aspect,” Lojko stated. 

“I take into consideration all these items and I’m so upset,” she stated. “What’s going to occur subsequent. And my coronary heart is simply breaking for all of them.” 

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Lenczuk grew up within the U.S., surrounded by Ukrainian tradition. Her dad and mom had been farmers in Ukraine when Soviet collectivization started, which led to the Holodomor. They had been swept up by the Nazis as laborers, constructing tanks Germany till the conflict ended. She stated her dad and mom met in a displaced individuals camp in Germany earlier than emigrating to Canada and later the U.S. 

Lenczuk stated it was vital to her dad and mom that their youngsters had been raised with Ukrainian tradition.  

“They felt that Ukraine wasn’t going to exist as a result of it was occupied by the Soviet Union. So, they wished someplace the place the Ukrainian tradition might exist.” 

Lenczuk visited her grandparents in Ukraine the 12 months earlier than the collapse of the Soviet Union. She remembers a rustic dotted with stunning golden church buildings and farmland. 

“The soil,” she laughed. “Once you take a look at fields right here, with farmers, you see brown clay. There it’s wealthy, black high soil. … Fields and fields, so far as the attention can see. And really very fertile land. And that’s the reason Ukraine is the breadbasket of Europe. Something grows there.” 

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She remembers rising up with out her grandparents within the U.S., caught behind the Iron Curtain throughout communism.  

“I felt prefer it was such an injustice that I had grandparents and I couldn’t see them,” she stated. “They couldn’t be there for all my performances at school. I performed within the band and, within the choirs, I sang within the choirs. My pals had their grandparents there. And I knew I had them, however they weren’t right here.” 

When she visited Ukraine, she remembers her grandfather displaying her a field with all of the letters that she and her dad and mom had written to them. 

Lenczuk stated her father received separated from his dad and mom at 17 throughout World Conflict II.  

“(Her grandfather) saved each one in every of them,” she stated. “He at all times felt like he would see one in every of us.”  

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Halyna Lojko visiting Ukraine in 2018.

Lojko was invited to show English at a summer season camp in Ukraine 4 years in the past and she or he spent a part of her journey visiting household.  

“I noticed my cousin and she or he noticed me. We simply ran to one another and hugged past perception. Simply to have the ability to contact and really feel one another,” she stated. “That is household.”

Lojko remembering strolling round Independence Sq. in Kyiv the place the Maidan revolution befell. 

“It was simply so emotional for me to stroll the place the place individuals marched and had been killed for his or her democracy.” 

Luba Bilowchtchuk, whose full identify means “lover of peace”, is a member of the Assumption Ukrainian Catholic Church and lives in Outdated Bridge.

She remembers the change in Ukraine from her first go to in 1979 to her final go to in 2016. 

“The progress that was made, the expertise, the Westernization, the democracy,” she stated. “In ’79, Ukraine was underneath the thumb of Russia. You would not do something, go wherever with out being adopted.” She stated in 2016, “It felt completely free.” 

She stated, “Ukrainians are extraordinarily extraordinarily resilient. They usually love their homeland. They usually’re going to battle for a democratic county.” 

Lenczuk stated a few of her family and pals in Ukraine are in areas with gunfire. She has a good friend within the capital she will be able to’t get in contact with. Her 95-year-old aunt has refused to go away, saying she lived by World Conflict II and can stay by this conflict. 

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When requested what she hopes would occur, Lenczuk stated she needs Putin to withdraw. 

Lojko stated she needs Putin faraway from his place. 

She pointed to the present protests towards the invasion of Ukraine by Russians in Moscow and St. Petersburg and the requires Russian democracy that had been taking place. 

“This man has destroyed 1000’s of lives.”

Olivia Liu is a reporter overlaying transportation, Crimson Financial institution and western Monmouth County. She could be reached at [email protected].

Source: Asbury Park

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