Christina Stasula and Iryna Zadorozhna are both concerned for their families in Ukraine, and also for the rest of the citizens in the country which has been under attack from the Russian army since February 24, 2022.
CHMA spoke with the pair from Zadorozhna’s Sackville home last Friday, with help from a niece in Ukraine, who provided translation services by phone for Zadorozhna. They spoke about the situation in Ukraine, and what people elsewhere can do about it.
You can hear that interview, edited for length, here:
Throughout the past week, donations boxes have been filling up in the lobby of Sackville town hall, collecting supplies that will be shipped by the Ukrainian Club of Moncton to Poland and then to war torn Ukraine, to help some of the estimated 1.5 million people now displaced by the invasion.
The families of both Zadorozhna and Stasula are being impacted.
“Ukraine is very scary right now,” Zadorozhna told CHMA. “The Russian occupants have destroyed a lot of cities in Ukraine. And they’re bombing hospitals, orphanages, schools, and many other civilian places… This is the situation in Ukraine and my family is suffering from the same situation, the same conditions.”
Both women are hoping for active involvement from NATO, in order to prevent further bombing of Ukraine by the Russian military. “I understand that NATO doesn’t want to be a part of this war,” says Zadorozhna, “because they’re afraid of the Third World War. But this war has already started.”
Stasula points to Ukraine’s voluntary destruction of its nuclear arsenal in 1994, and the agreement it signed at the time with Russia, the United States and Great Britain to assure its security as a non-nuclear state. “These people are not stepping up, as promised to us in December of 1994,” says Stasula. “It’s absolutely devastating. It feels to the Ukrainian people that the world is sitting and waiting for this to unfold.”
Zadorozhna is a doctor in Ukraine and has been living in Sackville with her husband, who passed away at the beginning of February. She credits the timing of his death with preventing her from taking a flight back to Ukraine for work, and sparing her from the onset of the war. She had been looking for work in New Brunswick, but since she is not authorized to practice medicine in Canada, is now considering returning to Ukraine, where her work could be very valuable to the Ukrainian people.
Stasula is a second generation Ukrainian-Canadian, with family located mostly in the western part of Ukraine. So far, her family can hear bombing, but they have not been hit directly, says Stasula. In Sackville, Stasula works in a chiropractor’s office, and says the clients she deals with every day have been supportive and kind since the beginning of the Russian aggression. “The support that I’ve received from some of the patients has been really heartwarming,” says Stasula. She cites, “small gestures of hugs, or wanting to discuss the happenings of the war in Ukraine and my perspective on it.”
Stasula says she and Zadorozhna have felt isolated since the beginning of the war, but that visible signs of solidarity, such as the display of Ukrainian flags and the blue and yellow lights currently on town hall, are heartening. But material support is still needed for her country.
“We are specifically asking our neighbors, our friends and family members here in Sackville to really reach into their hearts and donate what they can,” says Stasula. “It could be as small as a box of band aids, or as big as winter coats, boots, or sleeping bags.” She also says that non-perishable food, baby formula, diapers, feminine hygiene products, are all “things that are needed to continue this fight.”
Access to the right supplies, says Stasula, will “directly affect not only their ability to persist during all of this, but even to get away from it.”
“I would really like to see the love and support of Sackville come out and fill these bins with materials and items that will help our family in Ukraine,” says Stasula.
In terms of monetary donations, Stasula recommends the Ukrainian Club of Moncton, which is arranging shipping for the donated items, and also the Canadian Red Cross Ukraine effort.