Iryna Tincher visited her home country of Ukraine on Feb. 16. She walked around her hometown of Ternopil — about 80 miles east of Lviv — enjoyed some time with friends and family. Vika Lawson, an Owensboro resident, was born in Kyiv and lived in the nation’s capital until she was 7 years old. The two women on Monday gave their emotional accounts of what their families, still in Ukraine, are going through.
While Tincher was visiting, she mentioned to her friends the news she had been seeing in America and in conversation with her Belarussian friends about the impending Russian invasion.
“They were like ‘oh, just stop with your negativity, everything will be fine,’” Tincher recalled. “So Putin attacking [on Feb. 24], it was for a majority of people a big, big, big surprise.”
Tincher said since the initial attacks, she hasn’t been able to sleep much. Her daily routine now includes waking up, checking Ukrainian news, checking in on friends and family, then going about her day while going back to those on the grounds.
Ternopil is in the western region of Ukraine, so Tincher said most of her family has remained safe due to the distance from the Russian-Ukrainian border. However, she is fearful that if Belarus gets involved, access to the western region will become easier.
The nearest attack to Ternopil was at an airport in Ivano-Frankivsk, about 80 miles south of Ternopil. Tincher said that her father lives stateside, but his brother was not far from the explosion. She noted friends have had to go into basements and different subareas as sirens fill the area.
Lawson moved to the U.S. with one of here sisters when they were both adopted by an Owensboro family. Lawson still has other family members — both parents, other sisters, and a niece — that still live in Kyiv.
“My older sister left Ukraine to go to Poland just for safety, but her husband got taken into the Ukraine military the first day of the invasion,” Lawson said.
Her older sister was able to take her family to safety in Poland, but what would usually be a 7-hour trip took 14 hours due the backup for gas, stops by the Ukrainian police, and direction signs that had been taken down.
The rest of her family still in Kyiv are still in the line of fire. One sister lives in Chernihiv, which has experienced several attacks. There are several shelters and underground places for people to stay in both Kyiv and Chernihiv, but Lawson said they don’t have much food in those areas.
Seeing all the close attachment to the war has left Lawson stressed.
“Just imagine being in the line of fire. I would do everything to protect myself and my family and go underground if I could or I would leave the country,” Lawson said. “But they are refusing. … She said, ‘No, we’re staying here with our country. We’re not leaving our country and our people and our home behind.’”
The sense of Ukrainian pride and loyalty is something both Tincher and Lawson can see, whether it be the pride of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy or the citizens and the love they have for their country.
“The power and energy and strength (Zelenskyy) is showing to my people and to my country and to all the world, it’s absolutely amazing,” Tincher said.
While they noted that American media is doing a good job with coverage, the women said they have been getting their news directly from the ground level, watching families experiencing things first hand or hearing from the broadcasts.
Lawson said that she finds a lot of misinformation going out, even to some Ukrainians such as her niece who had been viewing misleading information from Russia. This also extends to some foundations that are collecting for Ukrainian support.
“There’s a lot of different sites, but some of them are not trustworthy. … So the only site that I’m familiar with I know that I trust because I’ve worked with them as a Proem Ministries [out of Poland],” Lawson said.
When it comes to supporting the Ukrainians, Lawson said that right now submitting to foundations like the Proem ministries would be helpful along with just praying for the country’s safety.
Tincher has also been raising funds on Facebook to be submitted to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the USA, where she and her family will match all donations made to the cause. Right now, she has raised just under $2,300 toward the church.
“So I’m trying to do as much as I can and I hope I can just help in a big way,” Tincher said.
