Parishioners prayed Thursday morning at St. Nicholas Ukrainian Catholic Cathedral in Chicago’s Ukrainian Village neighborhood, with stained glass inspired by Kyiv’s Cathedral of St. Sophia.
The Very Rev. Serhiy Kovalchuk asked a large throng to pray for Ukraine’s peace and stability.
He said that God loves us. “God hears.”
“Ukraine is a peaceful nation,” Kovalchuk said afterward. “We simply want our own nation. We want to choose and choose. ”
Ukrainian Americans spent the day after the start of a new fight imploring Russia to cease the assault that threatens their houses, associations, and ancestral homeland.
They said reporting the injuries and deaths was “laborious to follow.”
“Aggression can’t go unanswered,” says Biden of fresh Russian sanctions.
Images and videos from Ukraine showed injured people, smoke from buildings, and missiles in homes. Civil protection sirens sounded as long lines of cars slowly exited Kyiv.
After the attack, Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelenskyy cut diplomatic ties with Russia.
Assistant principal Lisa Swytnyk stated that lecturers at St. Nicholas Cathedral School held pupils who sobbed for their families in Ukraine. To aid them, the college enabled pupils to attend mass jointly.
Swytnyk fears for her relatives in western Ukraine. They’re fleeing the nation’s big cities to stay safe, she said.
“You’re so helpless,” she said. “I feel helpless.”
He is worried about his cousins who live in Ukraine, said Paul Skomoroch, an eighth grader at St. Nicholas.
Will Ukraine help Russia in the war?
US forces support NATO in Europe.
“They don’t feel safe,” Paul said, adding that several have told him they’re packed up and ready to move.
Taras Slobodian, who braved the cold to wave a Ukrainian flag in Chicago’s Ukrainian Village, said he could go the other way — to rejoin siblings and grandparents in Ukraine.
“I’ll return and assist,” he said. “I can’t just watch.”
In response to the violence, Ukrainian immigrant Olena Danylyuk expressed her concern, sadness, and fury.
She said one of her sisters and her children had escaped Kyiv and were hiding in a tiny town. Others are inside the city of Lviv. She said they hadn’t expected a battle today.
“They were stunned,” Danylyuk said.
Ukrainians ‘watch in terror’ as Russia attacks Michigan.
For the safety of the Ukrainian people, Mykola Murskyj, chair of the Ukrainian American Disaster Response Committee of Michigan, urged everybody to hope.
On Thursday night, the Rev. Ihor Koshyk opened the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary Ukrainian Catholic Church in Los Angeles. In the little church, decked with fragrant candles and colourful saints’ art, around two dozen gathered.
Let us pray for Ukraine and for God’s help, “Koshyk said during a night vigil prayer.
Both he and his wife, Olga, who arrived in the US 20 years ago, said they were stunned by the invasion on live television. They said the couple’s relatives and acquaintances in the country fled into hiding, with some taking refuge in metro stations.
“It’s surreal,” Olga said, crying. “You don’t understand how much your nation and your house mean to you unless you watch it torn apart and your people killed down for no reason.”
Oksana Ivasiv, 71, hung U.S. and Ukrainian flags from the steel grating outside St. George Ukrainian Catholic Church in Manhattan.
“I’m stunned,” she said. “I hope everything works out.”
Ivasiv arrived in the US in 1995 with his Ukrainian family. She has relatives in the country but has not heard from them as of Thursday morning.
“I knew (Putin) would return,” she said, “but I don’t know how far he’ll go.”
“My heart remains with my nation,” Ivasiv stated, despite her twenty-year residence in America.
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“God sees,” she added. “And he’ll say ‘sufficient.’”
Daria Rekucha, 78, said she regularly sends money and comfort packages to her family in Ukraine. She intends to send it throughout the invasion.
“Many people die,” she said. “That is highly harmful data.”
Sofiia Demianchuk, 19, of Brooklyn, said she and her family had tried sending money to Ukraine. They’ve also helped with online fundraising for Ukraine’s security, she said.
Tom Birchard, owner of the East Village Ukrainian eatery Veselka, said he contacted Ukrainian organization leaders for advice on where to send funds for the war-torn homeland.
“People prefer to know their donations are going to the best places,” Birchard says.
Vlad Sazhen, a second-year trade student from Ukraine, studies aerospace engineering at the University of Missouri. His fiancée, parents, and 8-year-old sister live in Kharkiv, around 25 miles from the Russian border.
Sazhen said he keeps in touch with his family and lover via video conversations earlier than the Russian assault “often when they appear to be awake.”
“They’re worried, but they know the Ukrainian military will protect them,” he said.
Artem Agvanian, 18, a Rhode Island college student, stated he and his family chose Russian for the final summer time when visiting his hometown in eastern Ukraine.
Another, Viktor Meleta, 41, a roboticist, spoke Ukrainian while he resided in Ukraine’s west.
They’re in Ukraine, regardless of language.
Each stated they want to prevent the calamity from being forgotten, which Agvanian called “a danger of oblivion.”
Vlad Brodsky, 69, lives in Springfield, Illinois, and says he keeps in touch with friends in Ukraine every day.
“They’ve got great nervous systems,” Brodsky said of his pals’ reaction to the Russian army buildup before Wednesday’s late-night assault. “They are not scared. Some of them buy guns, and if the Russians come, they may fight.
“They don’t want my (assessment) of the situation.
They may fight for their country, their families, against the Russians, “Brodsky”.
According to the US Census Bureau, there are over 1 million Ukrainians living in America. The most important teams are in New York Metropolis (160,000) and Philadelphia (60,000), the data shows.
Ukrainians are finding help from their new homeland.
This is an affront to our strong belief in a world where democratic states, following the rule of law and the free economic system, may be free and flourish.
