ANXIETY FROM ABROAD
Pittsburghers of Ukrainian ancestry watching Russia situation closely
In recent weeks, Irene Kurylas has started every morning by immediately checking international news. Ms. Kurylas, of Aspinwall, is part of a tight-knit Pittsburgh Ukrainian community watching the situation there with extreme concern.
“It’s just scary,” said Ms. Kurylas, 75. “It’s very, very upsetting that in 2022 this is happening.”
Russia has amassed more than 100,000 troops along the border, a move that leaders from the U.S. Department of Defense characterized Friday as enough to mount a full invasion. Russian President Vladimir Putin has issued numerous demands upon the West, including that Ukraine be barred from joining NATO and that NATO should not deploy missiles in countries on the Russian border or nearby.
There are about 11,600 people of Ukraine ancestry in Allegheny County and 21,180 in the Pittsburgh region, according to U.S. Census data from 2019.
Some attend weekend classes at the Ridna Shkola Ukrainan school in Carnegie, where Ms. Kurylas teaches Ukrainian language and culture. Others attend some of the more than a half dozen Ukrainian churches in the region. Several held services last week as a result of Pope Francis’ call for a day of prayer for peace in Ukraine.
Bishop David Zubik called for all Catholic churches in the Diocese of Pittsburgh to include a prayer for Ukraine at Wednesday Masses. “I ask everyone, those of our faith tradition and beyond, to lift their prayers for peace,” he said. “Pray that God may guide the work of the diplomats and change the hearts of those who seek domination and violence in a land that has already suffered inexpressible horrors over the past century.”
Sofiya Bidochko, of Murrysville, graduated from Penn-Trafford High School in 2020 and is now a sophomore at Yale University. She was born in Ukraine and immigrated to the U.S. with her parents when she was 2 years old.
She now gets daily updates from her mother, who is in constant communication with her grandma and extended family who live in Lviv, the largest city in Western Ukraine. Her family members are checking their passports, she said, and trying to figure out options.
“I’m quite worried and I’m more just devastated,” she said. “It’s like history just keeps repeating itself. You’re seeing a country just completely disrespect a sovereign country’s independence.”
While the situation isn’t exactly the talk of her college campus, she believes it has implications beyond just those with Ukrainian ancestry.
“It might be Ukraine now but you don’t know what country is next,” she said. “This can definitely escalate to a much bigger situation.”
Oksana Lernatovych teaches Ukrainian at the University of Pittsburgh and is executive editor of two Ukrainian radio programs in Pittsburgh. She went back and forth between Pittsburgh and Ukraine as a journalist for about a decade, permanently settling in Pittsburgh about eight years ago.
Ms. Lernatovych, 56, of Green Tree, also is in constant communication with relatives in the Ukraine.
They are already dealing with cyberattacks making internet access less reliable, she said, and while they are trying not to panic, they also are well aware of the history between Ukraine and Russia.
“Everybody remembers, my family really remembers Stalin’s repression,” she said. “It’s come back again.”
Ms. Kurylas, in Aspinwall, ended up in America after her parents fled the Red Army following World War II. She lived much of her life in Philadelphia, which has one of the largest Ukrainian populations in the United States.
Her sister-in-law, who lives in Washington, D.C., was supposed to fly to the Ukraine on Monday and is trying to figure out what to do, given that the U.S. State Department is warning against travel. “We don’t know what’s in Putin’s head,” she said. “Whether this is just saber-rattling or a scare tactic for the West to back down or, God forbid, soldiers on the ground and loss of life, loss of freedom, loss of their identity.”
Given American geography, it can be hard to translate the Ukrainian situation, she said.
“We’re so lucky, the U.S. and Canada — we are neighbors for over 200 years and friendly neighbors,” she said. “That has not been the situation with Ukraine, historically. There’s a neighbor who is just a bully.”