Phoenicians From Ukraine Worry For Family, Ready To Protest War

PHOENIX, AZ — While much of the world watched in horror as Russia launched a full-scale military invasion of Ukraine on Thursday, Phoenix dentist Oksana Stoj was reading texts from her family in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv.

"My family is texting and telling me that they hear bombing around the city coming from around 40 kilometers (25 miles) away," Stoj told Patch Thursday evening.

Stoj, 50, grew up in Lviv and moved to the United States around 26 years ago. All of her family, besides her husband and children, still live in Ukraine. She was not surprised that Russia invaded eastern Ukraine, where there are many Russian speakers and people loyal to Russian President Vladimir Putin. But Russia invaded from multiple directions, including from Belarus to the North of Ukraine, and from the northeast. The Russian military's attacks in western Ukraine caught Stoj off guard.

"Truly I did not expect that Putin would go into western Ukraine," she said. "It was always very patriotic."

Russia attacked three military facilities in the Lviv area Thursday morning, CNN reported. Lviv, a city that existed as far back as the 11th century, is considered the cultural center of Ukraine.

Stoj offered to help her family, specifically her mother and a niece who has a 6-month-old daughter, to escape to the United States, but they refused. Stoj's mother, who is in her 70s, still works at Stoj's brother's dentist office.

"'If we are all leaving who is going to defend country?"" Stoj's mother asked her, she said.

Stoj's brother and her nephew are also committed to staying. Her nephew, who is now 22, has been volunteering to help bring supplies and recover bodies in the eastern war zone in Ukraine since he was a teenager.

While hundreds of thousands of refugees are on the move, fleeing Ukraine for nearby Eastern European countries, Stoj's family is far from alone in wanting to stay, and even fight back.

As Russian troops entered the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv on Friday, civilians were readying weapons like Molotov cocktails to fight back, the New York Times reported.

"The lives of literally millions of people are being shattered," Stoj said.

She and her colleagues in the Phoenix branch of the Ukrainian National Women's League of America are working, as they have for years, to send aid to Ukraine. But Stoj added that for now it would be difficult to get packages into Ukraine so things like clothes and sleeping bags would likely have to be sent to neighboring Poland, where they can help the thousands of refugees that have fled there or are in the process of doing so.

"My heart is really breaking," Stoj said. "When people see war from that young it influences their whole lives and behavior."

She added that the only people who benefit from war are the people on top, the dictators, like Putin.

She doesn't have any theories about what the U.S. or the international community should be doing to stop the war, but said their failure began around 20 years ago when they failed to stop Putin's rise to power.

Stoj believes it's important that people in the U.S. know that Ukraine is not part of Russia, but is an independent country. While misinformation can fuel hatred, Stoj hopes that Ukrainians and Russians remember their common human values.

"I don’t want people to think I hate Russians," Stoj said. "We all remain human beings despite our nationality."

Stoj is far from the only one in the Valley with family ties to Ukraine. Many in the area are looking to take a stand.

Members of the St. Mary's Protectress Ukrainian Orthodox Church in Phoenix are planning a peaceful protest called "Stand with Ukraine" for 1:30 p.m. Sunday, with a march from the Ukrainian Cultural Center at 730 W. Elm St., to the corner of Camelback and 7th Avenue.

"St. Mary's Protectress along with the Phoenix branch of UCCA (Ukrainian Congress Committee of America) is calling all Ukrainians, Ukrainian-Americans, friends, and supporters of Ukraine from all over Arizona to come and show your solidarity with Ukraine, and support for its independence, and territorial integrity within its internationally recognized borders, including Crimea and the temporarily occupied regions of eastern Ukraine," organizers said in a Facebook post.

The goals of the protest are to demonstrate support of Ukrainian sovereignty and to demand an end to Russia's war in Ukraine and its occupation of Crimea and other territories in eastern Ukraine, according to the Facebook post.