The Ukrainian diaspora continues ‘impossible fight’
At first, we felt we were winning. The world stood with us, and the tidal wave of support cocooned us with hope and gratitude. Hollywood celebrities, politicians, and business leaders offered words of encouragement. You couldn’t walk down an American city street without seeing a Ukrainian flag.
On Feb. 24, Russian airstrikes thrust Ukraine into war. Across the ocean, Ukrainian-Americans felt their reverberations. In an instant, everything changed: horror, despair, frantic calls back home, a sense of the unreal come to life.
Within hours, our shock turned to resolve — we sprang into action, each of us a soldier finding our front. We raised millions to support the army and the civilians caught in the crossfire. We organized protests. We urged businesses to exit Russia and politicians to send aid.
Informal global volunteer groups formed spontaneously to coordinate these efforts. Group chats on Telegram, Facebook Messenger, and Signal brought together Ukrainian-Americans from all walks of life. All of a sudden, there were no strangers, just one global community with a common mission.
“Here’s what I need.”
“How can I help?”
“Let me connect you.” “Glory to Ukraine!”
The two of us, Nataliya and Katerina, Ukrainian-Americans living on opposite coasts, met in one of these groups, each seeking to use her skills to withstand Putin’s assault on our homeland.
Before the war, Katerina, who is based in Stamford, helped connect Ukrainian students with English-speaking volunteers for one-on-one online language practice. In February, 4,000 ENGin students were working with a global network of 3,700 volunteers.
When war broke out, Katerina focused on amplifying her students’ stories. She connected young Ukrainians to local and national news shows, helping them share what was happening on the ground. She also gave her volunteers in the United States the tools to advocate for Ukraine — with a unique direct connection to Ukrainian students, ENGin volunteers are helping their communities understand the realities of war.
Nataliya, a Silicon Valley entrepreneur, turned her Bay Area nonprofit, Hromada, into a vehicle for humanitarian relief. Since 2017, Hromada (“community” in Ukrainian), had been publishing the West Coast’s first Ukrainian newspaper. When Russia invaded, Nataliya’s team pivoted to collecting funds to support women and children in war zones.
Smaller and more nimble than big-name charities, Hromada operates with maximum speed and flexibility. Nataliya’s team sends help directly to trusted partners on the ground: donations collected each day reach Ukraine overnight. The volunteer team operates with no overhead, ensuring that every dollar collected reaches Ukraine.
One of Hromada’s partners, TAPS-Ukraine, is based in Dnipro, a relatively safe zone. TAPS volunteers purchase food, water, and other necessary supplies, and drive them to Kharkiv, which is under sustained assault by Russian forces. Its trucks make the life-threatening trek each day, bringing relief to thousands of civilians. Hromada has already distributed $120,000 in microgrants to TAPS and other such organizations.
Over the past few weeks, we’ve both devoted every free minute to the war effort. For us, action is the most effective antidote to the daily horrors unfolding in our homeland.
At first, we felt we were winning. The world stood with us, and the tidal wave of support cocooned us with hope and gratitude. Hollywood celebrities, politicians, and business leaders offered words of encouragement. You couldn’t walk down an American city street without seeing a Ukrainian flag.
The support wasn’t just symbolic. Humanitarian aid — billions of dollars of aid — poured in from the government, the private sector, and ordinary Americans. The government imposed unprecedented economic sanctions. Weapons deliveries helped Ukrainian soldiers and volunteers fight. Our homeland was under attack — but we were part of a powerful, global effort to defend ourselves, to save our children and our cities.
But three weeks into the fighting, disillusionment is sinking in. The weapons, the protests, the aid — none of it has ended the war. The war crimes only escalate, and the body count piles up.
The only thing that can help, our soldiers tell us, is air support. But no matter how much Ukraine begs, no matter how many atrocities the Russians commit, the U.S. government has not budged.
No to a humanitarian no-fly zone.
No to fighter jets.
No to long-range missile defense systems.
And so, our volunteer groups become a place not just for exchanging ideas and making plans, but for moral support. Every few days, someone approaches a breakdown. I can’t do this anymore. What’s the point? The burden of all the dead children and the political inaction becomes too heavy to carry.
We sob into the phone to someone in Kyiv, in Florida, in Minnesota, in Mumbai. Often, it is someone we hadn’t known before the war, but who now understands our pain in a way American friends cannot.
We fall, and another volunteer pulls us back up. The next day, we will return the favor. As long as our brothers and sisters in Ukraine are holding the line, so must we. And so we continue our impossible fight.
Natalia Anon is a serial entrepreneur currently serving as the CEO of Silicon Valley software development firm Svitla Systems. She is co-founder of the nonprofit organization Hromada. Anon graduated from Stanford Business School in 2001. Katerina Manoff is the founder & CEO of ENGin, which provides free language practice and cultural exchange to Ukrainian youth, and a freelance writer.