It’s heartbreaking to see Ukraine once again ravaged by war
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Daria Lawrynuik and her granddaughter Sarah Lawrynuik: Daria was fiercely proud of her Ukrainian heritage, but strongly opposed to her family visiting the country. (Family photo)
I didn’t grow up with many other Ukrainian Canadians. So as a child, visiting my grandparents in Garden City, I didn’t know what to think of my baba who was a little different from my friends’ grandmothers.
She wore a braid as a crown on her head, topped with a flowery scarf every time we left the house. She insisted that all my dresses have crinolines and that I always wear woolen socks. She hid all the pocket money she had around the house for emergencies. She was storing food.
![<p>Sarah interviewed Yegor at a Kiev military hospital in 2019 after having his leg amputated. He had been working as an army nurse in the eastern provinces a few weeks earlier. In the interview he said: “Russia will not give up. Russia will continue to expand into Eastern Europe if we let it. (Submitted)</p>
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<p>Sarah interviewed Yegor at a Kiev military hospital in 2019 after having his leg amputated. He had been working as an army nurse in the eastern provinces a few weeks earlier. In the interview he said: “Russia will not give up. Russia will continue to expand into Eastern Europe if we let it. (Submitted)</p>
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<p>Whatever I expected, it wasn’t. I felt remarkably comfortable at home, even though I no longer have any living relatives there. But the relief of healing and returning home was dampened, as I was not there for recreation, but rather as a journalist, there to cover yet another war in Ukraine. </p>
<p>Here in Canada, we may be shocked that an all-out invasion took place, but the truth is that Ukrainians have been warning us for years of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s ambitions to bring the whole country back under Russian control. They warned us that their country would slowly fade away, but apparently no one cared. </p>
<p>While in Kiev, I spoke with a British military consultant who worked with the Ukrainian military, Glen Grant. He was working alongside Canadian military trainers at the time, and he said words that still haunt me, because remember, he said them in October 2019. </p>
<p>“Yes [Russia] thought that Britain, Canada, Germany and France were actually going to stand in the front line with Ukraine. There would be no more Russian aggression. It would stop. It should. So by being weak, we are actually inviting Russia and Putin to continue. And I don’t think that’s very smart. These are shades of 1930, 1937, 1938 where we just didn’t do anything to Hitler and we just thought, “Oh, this is going to go away.” But it’s not, and it hasn’t gone away here.” </p>
<p>Before leaving for Kiev, I spoke to a refugee from Crimea who had landed in Calgary, Anna Zakharova. Since fleeing Ukraine, she has spent all her free time trying to raise awareness of Russian tactics used after the annexation of Crimea in 2014. Instead, she was endlessly frustrated with forgiveness of the world for Russian aggression. Allowing the country to host the World Cup in 2018 was spitting in the face of all Ukrainians, she said. </p>
<p>“People are busy with their business here, and there are a lot of things happening here to fight for,” Zakharova told me in 2019. “But we have people dying there and the war continues for the fifth year and nobody cares here.” </p>
<p>The horrors Ukrainians have endured over the past week are a marked escalation, but make no mistake, Ukrainians are living with the moderate trauma of watching their country slip away for eight years. </p>
<p>Two weeks ago, when Canadian and American troops withdrew from Ukraine to NATO allies, I knew that Ukraine would be portrayed as a country of martyrs if negotiations failed. </p>
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Martyrs to hopefully prevent a war the likes of which we cannot imagine if Europe is dragged into another world war. I think even Ukrainians who are living through this invasion understand why now it is too late for western ground troops to stand with Ukraine.
But what breaks my heart is that I am the first to have healed enough of my family to be able to set foot in Ukraine again some 76 years after my baba ran away. For Ukrainians who survive this invasion, I pray that the worst thing they remember is the bombs falling while they sleep in metro stations, but if sanctions and peace talks fail to defuse this conflict, I doubt that is the case. .
And so the cycle of trauma will continue. Not only will an unknown number of Ukrainians die in a war they don’t want, but the struggle to heal from the conflict will be felt for generations.
I think it is a grief that many Canadians can feel and share. Canada has often accepted refugees from conflict – Bosnians, Syrians, Sudanese, Iraqis, Afghans – we are all communities struggling to heal, all praying that once our hearts are healed, our descendants will not have to face to the same pain.
I pray for peace. I pray that this cycle can still be avoided.
Sarah Lawrynuik is a freelance writer.