Russia-Ukraine war: Ukrainian-Americans unite against the invasion
As a child growing up in post-Soviet Ukraine in the 2000s, Svitlana Melnyk* knew that the new state of Russia represented an existential threat to her country. But a full-scale invasion? She couldn't see it happening. But last Thursday, the invasion began.
Missiles rained in from the sky and tanks rolled into Ukrainian territory. Ordinary Ukrainians were asked to pick up light arms and defend their nation.
Seven days on, with more than half a million Ukrainians now refugees in neighbouring Poland, Slovakia, Hungary and Moldova, she struggles to comprehend how quickly things have escalated.
Two of her family members in Ukraine enlisted as territorial guards, and over the weekend, her father, who emigrated to the US some 17 years ago, left New York City to go and fight. He joined the artillery division.
"It's the worst that could have happened, but deep in my heart, I think we are prepared," Svitlana Melnyk told Middle East Eye. "We have grown up with Russia always trying to interfere."
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Like so many other Ukrainians in the US, many of whom now live in New York City and northern New Jersey, 27-year-old Svitlana, who is originally from Chernivtsi, a town in western Ukraine, is living under a cloud of uncertainty and confusion.
Facts on the ground are ever-shifting as Russian forces continue to bomb cities, targeting civilian infrastructure and interrupting food and medical supplies.
"It's hard and uncertain. Unless we just spoke to them, we are always uncertain," Svitlana and her sister Olesya, 24, say, almost in unison.
The sisters, like many sleep-deprived Ukrainian Americans, are worried sick about their loved ones and at the prospect of their country suffering unspeakable devastation at the hands of occupation.
They've been attending daily protests in different parts of the city in the hope that the US government, the UN - anyone - will put an end to the conflict.
"We have to do anything we can to support them. These are [often] civilians trying to defend the city from the Russian army. We hope that we can put pressure on politicians in the West - like our own government, Nato and others, because in the long term, they will need international help," Svitlana says.
Luke Tomycz, a Ukrainian-American neurosurgeon based in Jersey City, whose parents and grandparents were displaced after World War II, came to the US in the 1950s, said it felt "like history repeating itself".
"Unfortunately, the refugee crisis is how this war become everyone's war. Europe only recently had to deal with an influx of Syrian refugees. Now it looks like they might have a lot of Ukrainian refugees, too. This is how we are all interconnected."
Likewise, Natalya Luss, 25, who moved from Ukraine to the US when she was just three years old, said she also had family members in the capital Kyiv who had joined the local defence brigade.
"Other members of my family are just trying to survive. My aunts and uncles in a small town that has been taken over by Russia, I have had no contact with them," said Luss, a manager in a doctor's office in New York City.
"I don't think anyone ever imagined it would go to this extent. It is very upsetting to see the country in which I was born destroyed like this, all for the selfish reasons of one man. I don't even blame the Russian people for this," Luss added.
In the US, the Russian invasion has dominated news cycles and social media feeds. Wall-to-wall coverage and mainstream media commentary have also unleashed a yearning among some segments of the American public for a return of American leadership in the global arena.
Unlike the US-supported, Saudi-led war in Yemen that is heading into its eighth year, rendering close to an estimated 400,000 people dead and a country in ruin, there has been an outpouring of public outrage towards Russia and Vladimir Putin in particular.
At demonstrations across the country, vehement anti-war protesters calling for an end to hostilities stand side by side with those calling for weapons to be either transferred to Ukraine or for Nato to act with military action.
On social media, doctored videos and misinformation are making their way onto timelines, with the intention to up the ante and raise the temperature further.
"I don't know if people actually care about Ukraine and we have the China question as well, and so nobody knows. The fact is that my people are dying not just for themselves, they are dying for the whole world," Evgeny Popov, a 35-year-old photographer based in New York City, told MEE.
"Russia was preparing for this and practising by participating in wars like Syria. They already invaded us (Ukraine) in 2014 ... Moldova and Poland could be next," Popov, of mixed Ukrainian and Russian heritage, said.
Tomycz, the neurologist, argues that Ukraine represents a unique opportunity for the US "to get it right".
"I don't think the US should send troops. But put the finger on the scale in a significant way to support Ukraine.
"Ukrainians love the US. They [are] not naive. But overall, they want to be like western Europe and the United States," he says.
*Name changed on request.
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