‘Stressful and ominous’: Ukrainians in KC worry about loved ones as Russia invades
The text arrived on Alexey Ladokhin’s phone Thursday morning, just a few hours after the Russian invasion had begun.
“THEY BLEW UP THE AIRPORT,” read the message from his 12-year-old daughter.
On Thursday afternoon, Vitaly Chernetsky thumbed through his phone and read a Facebook message he’d received from his cousin, Tetiana Holota, who lives in Odessa, Ukraine, and whose husband is a Ukrainian military officer.
“We are worried about being struck by missiles,” the message said.
“Hold on. Hugs,” Chernetsky wrote back.
“We’re trying to hold on,” she replied.
In Kansas City, residents woke up to a dusting of snow. But Ladokhin, Chernetsky and others with ties to the Eastern European country under attack also woke up to panicked messages from family on their phones and images of explosions on TV.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine began Thursday, with forces conquering various Ukrainian territories, attacking from the north, east and south.
The Star spoke to Ukrainians around the Kansas City area who have been impacted by the invasion.
All grew up in the European country and have family and friends that still live in various parts of Ukraine.
“Americans need to pay attention to what is happening,” Ladokhin said. “It is important for Americans to realize it is their war.”
‘We can only pray’
Chernetsky’s two-story house in Hyde Park is filled with objects and reminders of his native country.
He walked to a bookshelf, showing some of the more important artifacts on display: Ivan Dziuba’s book “Internationalism or Russification,” a book that ended up getting the social activist and literary critic sent to prison and exiled. “Kobzar,” the first poetry book written by famed Ukrainian poet Taras Shevchenko, published in 1840, the copy a replica handed down to Chernetsky by his paternal grandfather.
Chernetsky was born in 1970 in Odessa, when the country was still under control of the Soviet Union, which dissolved in 1991. He was born and grew up in the same two-bedroom, 1,300-square-foot house his father, Olexander, lives in now.
The house was about a mile away from the ocean, close enough to where he could see the beach from the attic. Odessa has a very rich culture, he said.
“It was a very happy childhood and I’m grateful to my parents also for things they installed, a lot of geography and a love of foreign languages,” said Chernetsky, a professor of Slavic Languages and Literature at the University of Kansas who has lived in Kansas City since 2013.
But the past few months have not been among his happiest. It was unclear whether Russian President Vladamir Putin would order an attack on Ukraine, leaving Chernetsky worried for his 74-year-old father. Chernetsky’s mother died in February 2021, so his father has been living alone.
“The stress gradually grew,” he said. “Things were just getting stressful and ominous.”
He got home Wednesday night from teaching and had wanted to relax with his husband. But then he saw Facebook posts and tweets that the bombings had started. He couldn’t believe it.
Odessa is eight hours ahead and it was not yet dawn. He sent his father a voice message through Viber, a messaging app similar to WhatsApp. All he could do was wait.
He slept little, going over nightmare scenarios in his head. Chernetsky set his alarm for 6 a.m. He woke up before it, opened his phone and saw a message from his father.
He still had electricity, heat and running water. Yes, he’d heard explosions. He hadn’t felt them. His father had reached out to his local bank, but they were closed.
“He was trying to project that the situation is under control, but I could really feel that that was not entirely the case,” Chernetsky said. “In the end, he just said we can only pray.”
By Thursday afternoon, Chernetsky had received at least 100 emails, text messages and Facebook messages from colleagues, students and former students. He’s kept up with the news here and there, including listening to the end of President Joe Biden’s news conference where he announced new sanctions against Russia.
But the images have been overwhelming: watching Ukrainians take shelter inside an underground metro station; seeing CNN reporter Matthew Chance furiously put on a flak jacket and a helmet on air while reporting from Kyiv; observing tanks roll in and explosions go off.
“I do not want to just sit there consuming news and getting more and more worried,” he said.
‘What is it all for?’
Ladokhin’s plane landed past midnight at Kansas City International Airport late Wednesday night, after Putin had declared the launch of a “special military operation.”
Immediately, he started trying to contact his daughter, who lives in Ivano-Frankivsk, a city in western Ukraine, with her grandparents. That’s when she wrote back that the airport had been attacked.
“It was shocking,” he said.
The airport that was attacked was the same airport where he had said goodbye to her over the Christmas holiday. Now it is gone. Videos spread across social media and news outlets of a missile appearing to hit the airport, causing a massive fireball with clouds of smoke billowing toward the sky.
His daughter felt the blast. He felt her fear. Stay calm and help your grandparents, he wrote back.
He then texted her the first part of Ukraine’s national salute.
“Glory to Ukraine,” Ladokhin said.
“Glory to the heroes,” she replied.
Ladokhin has many loved ones scattered throughout the country attempting to evacuate to shelters in the countryside, including his parents, who live in Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital city.
He was born in the city of Donetsk, a city in southeastern Ukraine, which is now occupied by Russian troops.
“I spoke to my friends in Kyiv, they were reporting explosions, low flying air crafts and foreign embassies burning documents.”
He has lived in the United States for 32 years. He moved to Kansas City 18 years ago and works as a biochemistry professor at the University of Kansas School of Medicine.
He and his fellow professors have spent decades trying to warn Americans about the dangers of Vladimir Putin.
“Every American needs to understand that this is about them as much as it’s about Ukraine,” he said.
“This is very similar to the start of World War II when Hitler was annexing Czechoslovakia.”
Illya Bronshteyn, who works with Ladokhin at the medical school, agreed.
“Americans need to understand that everything Putin says is a lie. If he takes over Ukraine he will not stop,” he said.
Bronshteyn and his wife, Halayna Fedosyuk, who also works at the medical school, heard news of the Russian invasion from their son, who had been surfing the internet around 10 p.m. Wednesday.
The family left Ukraine in 1998 after winning a U.S green card lottery. Their family, friends, former colleagues and university peers are back in Ukraine. Hearing that Putin had waged war on the country, placing countless loved ones at risk, moved Fedosyuk to tears.
“My son came and said ‘Putin started the war. It’s a full invasion.’ I couldn’t believe it. I was in denial. And he said ‘No mom. They are moving toward Kyiv’,” Fedosyuk said.
Their son spent the night reaching out to his cousins in hopes of learning they were safe. In total, Fedosyuk said the family didn’t fall asleep until 1 a.m. or 2 a.m. and woke up again at 6 a.m. to check the news.
Fedosyuk called her sister, family and friends who live in Lviv, a city in western Ukraine about 50 miles from the Polish border. When they picked up the phone, Fedosyuk could hear ballistic missiles piercing the sky in the background. Her sister could not stay on the phone long and rushed to find shelter for her husband and daughter shortly after the two ended their call.
They live close to a military airport, said Fedosyuk, which was expected to be a target for airstrikes at the time. The two spoke again Thursday morning, exchanging “I love you’s” and their worries as Putin forces advanced. In the afternoon Fedosyuk’s sister left a message for her despite it being around 11 p.m. in Ukraine at the time.
“’It’s madness and I’m ready to go to fight’ is what she said,” according to Fedosyuk.
“I just can’t imagine what they’re going through right now. People were going to travel and to spend holidays. Children were going to school. And then suddenly an unprovoked attack? It’s just unbelievable. I cannot even talk about it,” she said, her voice shaking.
Fedosyuk shuttered thinking about the 18 and 20-year-olds being drafted to fight in the Ukrainian army.
“What is it all for? What for?” she asked.
How to help
Protesters gathered Thursday in various cities across the United States to show solidarity with Ukraine.
A protest is scheduled Saturday at The Plaza in Kansas City.
Chernetsky said anyone who would like to help can make a donation. He recommended the charity Razom for Ukraine, a nonprofit organization based in New York City that will use the money that is raised to fund medical aid.
He also urged people to contact their elected officials and members of Congress to tell them that Ukraine deserves support.
And he asked anyone who is religious to pray for Ukraine.
This story was originally published February 25, 2022 at 5:00 AM.
