Ukrainian students in US fret about future

MONTEZUMA, N.M. – At a boarding school in the Rocky Mountains, a group of Eastern European teenagers made crepes to raise money for the millions of people whose lives have been uprooted by Russia’s war on Ukraine.

The students at a pine-dotted campus in northern New Mexico worry from a world away about their relatives in the war-torn region.

Masha Novikova, a 19-year-old from central Ukraine, spent the night before on the phone with nongovernmental organizations trying to get her mother and three younger siblings to Germany, and arguing with her mother about which would be more dangerous: staying put or hitting the road.

Novikova said she was dealing with a lot of tasks “teenagers do not usually face,” as she grapples with the reality her family’s home might not exist in the way it once did. “It ruins you from the inside,” she said.

At the United World College campus, teenagers from 95 countries study as part of a network of schools dedicated to fostering understanding between cultures. On a recent Saturday, a halfdozen of them gathered in a dormitory kitchen to make blini – the Eastern European-style crepes – to sell to fellow students.

“It’s so hard to focus on (school) with exams approaching. We’re still high school students. We’re still trying to live our lives, and we have a bunch of high school level issues and suddenly, like, war intervenes,” said Alexandra Maria Gomberg Shkolnikova, 18, of Mexico City, whose family is from Russia and Ukraine.

United World College officials are exploring options for students from Russia and Ukraine to stay on campus or with alumni families if it’s not safe to travel after graduation, said Victoria Mora, president of UWC in the U.S.

The blini session is hardly an escape for Novikova, whose phone kept buzzing with messages. But for a few hours she was stressed out with her friends, instead of being stressed out alone.

“What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger,” said Sophia Pavlenko, a 19year-old Russian citizen, as she led the blini cooking.

“What doesn’t kill you gives you trauma,” Novikova said.

CEDAR ATTANASIO/AP Students Sophia Pavlenko, left, of Russia, and Masha Novikova, of Ukraine, prepare crepes to sell to fellow students at the United World College in Montezuma, N.M.