Rebuilding the heart and home
A woman’s journey after the invasion of Ukraine
An illustration of a Ukrainian flag waving in the wind. // Illustration by Julia Vreeman
Written by Aria Nguyen
CW: Graphic language and discussion of death. Please read with caution.
KATERYNA’S JOURNEY
It was only 15 degrees Fahrenheit in the makeshift bomb shelter — Kateryna’s home for the next couple of months.
Outside the bombs kept soaring all day up until midnight. Then they started again at 4 a.m.
In 2022 Russia invaded Ukraine. Kateryna, 35, who prefers to be identified by first name only, lived in the Ukrainian city of Mariupol.
Kateryna and her siblings lay in a line on the floor, covering themselves in jackets just to keep warm. They were their father’s jackets. The windows were boarded up to prevent the glass from shattering at the chance a bomb hit their home. The chances of this were high, considering all the neighbors’ houses were in ruins around them.
Kateryna recalled the neighbor’s house next door had over 100 people in it, and because the houses were not made to be actual bomb shelters — they were home basements — all of the members within died as soon as the missile hit above ground.
“It’s hard to believe how many people died in that city, there’s no way to find out how many were inside,” Kateryna said, communicating through a translator.
Lifeless bodies lay in the streets. Family members had to wait for the bombardment of missiles to pause before they could dig mass graves, sticking one wooden cross into the firm ground and carving the names of those they could identify.
The invasion of Ukraine’s capital by Russia left the world in shock, though the two countries have a long history of tension and war.
In 2013, protests sparked in Ukraine after President Viktor Yanukovych refused to sign an “associations agreement” during the European Union summit in Vilnius, Lithuania. This agreement is supposed to promote deeper political and economic ties along with common values, according to the Council of the European Union.
Yanukovych’s actions, primarily influenced by Russia, sparked protests going into the next year and led to his overthrow. With heated tensions, Russia took over Crimea, a region considered a part of Ukraine. This annexation of Crimea led to a war between Russia and Ukraine.
On February 24, 2022, Russian forces invaded and attacked the capital of Ukraine, Kyiv, causing another war and leaving over 7 million Ukrainians displaced around Europe.
Some of the displaced, like Kateryna, have found their way to Washington state.
Before the invasion, Kateryna worked in an office that sold technology. Like any other person in Mariupol, she had friends, a church and a beautiful city to live in. This all changed in a blink of an eye. Kateryna remembered receiving a call from her sister who was living in Kyiv at the time.
“The war [is] coming and it seems like on your side it will be much more invasive so get ready and get out,” Kateryna’s sister said to her.
Kateryna did not believe the conflict and stakes would be so high. She said her parents, like many in Mariupol, believed the war would resemble the fighting in 2014 with “little shooting here or there” — but nothing could prepare them for the life of tragedies and trauma that would follow the Russian invasion of Kyiv.
Kateryna traveled for 30 minutes or more to get water or to gather food. In one instance she and her brother decided to gather water for members staying in the shelter with them, making this selfless sacrifice because they were not in relationships and had no children. Getting to their destination, lines of people stood in front of them, Kateryna said sometimes they would have to wait two hours in line while bombs fell around them.
“Constantly you see bombs falling and everything just shelling everywhere, the people just still standing in line to get water,” she said.
Kateryna said when they turned around they saw people running, screaming, from houses on fire all around them. It felt like a dream, she said. More like a nightmare.
“It was so hard to see them, it was such a fear and then after a while, you realize that you don’t fear anymore and you get afraid that your brain is switching, you know, enough to get crazy,” Kateryna said.
After those moments, Kateryna said she stopped eating for some time. Even after coming to America, she could still hear the screams of people dying around her.
When the war started, Kateryna wanted to stay in the city to help others. Her church, she said, was hosting a youth group and would provide aid to the elderly during that time.
The constant exposure to small children being affected by the Russian-Ukrainian war changed her mind about staying in the city and continuing to witness the horrors of war.
One day, out of nowhere, a young couple with a baby just a few months old, ran over to the bomb shelter Kateryna was living in, she said. This family still had a working car, and from there they aided Kateryna with her escape.
On the border of Ukraine and Poland she was able to call her sister, who happened to live in Lynden, just outside of Bellingham. At the beginning of her journey, Kateryna said she was hesitant to leave Ukraine.
“I feel, I’m not feeling okay by leaving by myself, you know, big, bigjourney,” Kateryna told herself as she fled.
But after hearing sirens all day, every day, and from being under the bombings, Kateryna said she could not live that way any longer. Her sister helped her buy airline tickets to Mexico, and from there she would cross the Mexican border in Tijuana, moving her way up to Washington.
Kateryna said that she believes God’s will and his premise allowed her to come over and survive the war.
When Kateryna arrived in Washington, rebuilding her life in the U.S. was not something she did on her own — organizations opened their resources up to help her and other’s impacted by the Russian-Ukrainian war.
An illustration of Zhanna working on her laptop. // Illustration by Julia Vreeman
DOMINICK’S HELPING HAND
Sunnyside, a rural town in Yakima County — a place of agricultural upbringing. A different walk of life than Ukraine.
This is the place where Dominick Bonny grew up. Dominick, a digital marketing specialist and lead webmaster for Friends of Ukraine Refugees, was raised in a Catholic household. From Sunday dinners with family and their priest gathered around the table, to bringing food to nuns of their church to handing out food to lower-income families — Dominick and his family were always doing something with their community.
The relationship and community building, along with the “society-wide injustices” he felt inspired Dominick to get involved with Friends of Ukraine Refugees, and other community organizations.
This grassroots organization was founded by Russ and Jean Spiedel — the couple, well known in the Wenatchee community, received money from the State Department to aid families coming from Ukraine. After the bombings in Ukraine, they wanted to get involved to support the Slavic community in the Wenatchee area.
“I can’t do anything about the war in Ukraine but I can help, in some small way, people who are displaced by that war, and so I jumped at the chance,” Dominick said.
Dominick’s role includes making and running the Friends of Ukraine Refugees website and carrying the furniture of refugees when they need help moving to a new home.
The group is not a “Fortune 500 professional business,” as Dominick puts it, but each member is doing their best to find homes for refugees, move them in and give them the resources they need to start a new life in Washington — whether that be for the time being or permanently.
“It’s by the labor of love by everybody,” Dominick said. “Everybody kind of takes a little piece, and it’s not perfect, but everything that needs to get done gets done.”
ZHANNA’S COMPASSION
More locally, Zhanna, who prefers to be identified by first name only, helps resettle those who have experienced war and conflict. Zhanna and her colleagues are some of those who helped Kateryna settle in Whatcom County.
Zhanna is a community resource agent and interpreter for the World Relief Western Washington (WRWW) Whatcom County office. WRWW is a local branch of the national organization World Relief, whose work focuses on helping immigrants and refugees resettle. World Relief is a Christian humanitarian organization that works with local churches and community organizations to meet these resettlement goals.
In March and April of 2022, Zhanna said Ukrainian refugees started to immigrate to Western Washington. At this time, her pastor recommended she get in touch with Steven Shetterly, the Whatcom County resettlement manager for WRWW, to see if he needed an interpreter.
“We interviewed over 80 families,” she said. “Back to back, it was kind of busy.”
Since then, Zhanna has been working to provide resources to families who need them. She described one bitter-sweet moment:
It was a family with three children, they had no sponsors and were living in someone else’s home.
“And all of the sudden the people said ‘You have to leave, we have no space for you here,’ so they pretty much had nowhere to go,” Zhanna said.
At the time, this family only had their car, which Zhanna said they considered living in, despite having three children, because they were out of options. For almost 10 days this family had no place to call home– until WRWW found them an apartment and helped them pay for the deposit.
“When you see men cry because he’s like ‘Is this real? Can this really be happening?’ I think it was a bad day that turned out to be good,” Zhanna said, bringing forth a small smile.
Regina Jefferies, assistant professor in the Law, Diversity and Justice Program at Fairhaven College at Western Washington University, is a consultant for a law firm that does work around asylum, refugee law and other immigration law issues.
For 15 years, Regina has been practicing law in the context of migration and representing asylum seekers and refugees — much like Kateryna and the clients of Zhanna and Dominick — though each story is unique and deeply personal.
Regina said sharing stories is important in terms of understanding where people are coming from, not in the sense of their home country, but their experiences and approach to the world.
In the United States, Regina said it is difficult to imagine the degree of the impact of war and conflict because of the type of place Americans live — a place without conflict on its own soil. Therefore, hearing a variety of voices may change the way people think, especially as the media has a large influence on public opinion on refugees as mentioned by the study, “Refugees in the media: Exploring a vicious cycle of frustrated psychological needs, selective exposure, and hostile intergroup attitudes.”
“I think that listening to and understanding, or having some sense of understanding, of the stories of other people really puts those things into perspective,” she said. “And it helps us, I think, to relate to the people that are around us in a way that actually helps us to grow and hopefully contributes to a place where we are welcoming of people with different experiences.”
For Zhanna, the stories that her clients are willing to share and describe have an emotional impact on her and allow her to see a different perspective.
The biggest thing that touched her heart, she said, was people coming together in such terrible times.
“I had one family that shared with me a photo of their home, and the neighbor they have next to their house had the bomb come into their house and just laid on the sofa, [it] did not explode,” Zhanna said.
During this time the people from their village came together to help rebuild their neighbor’s house — which meant carrying the bomb out themselves.
“And just seeing, you know, such a big unity for people,” Zhanna said. “This is really interesting. It just always touches me.”
The outside entrance of the World Relief Western Washington office, located at 805 W Orchard Dr, on January 23. World Relief Western Washington is a local branch of the national organization World Relief. In the Bellingham office, the staff meets with clients to get them the resources they need. // Photo by Aria Nguyen
ADAPTING TO A NEW HOME
Kateryna stares out the World Relief Western Washington office windows. Outside the rain is pouring down, typical for Bellingham.
“They have weather like this in Ukraine,” Kateryna said.
Adjusting to her new life in the United States, Kateryna is working on improving her English, she said. So far, Kateryna is enjoying her schooling and has just got her driver’s license. She said it took her four times to pass the exam — but the bright smile on her face proves that she will not be discouraged about anything.
Her message to those still in Ukraine is to never let hate consume them.
“Never let hate come into your heart,” Kateryna said. “No matter what, no matter how many situations you’ve been [in], hate is destroying you from inside.”
Kateryna said she once held this hate in her heart, but it did nothing for her. She said she hopes people can continue to support each other and not continue to have hate for other nations, languages and people.
And with this message, and her sharing her story, she said she hopes to help those in similar circumstances and to let those know the true consequences of war. Kateryna also hopes that people will remember to be grateful for what they have — warm beds, food, safety and their loved ones — because at any moment that could all be gone.