This story was updated at on March 1 at 3:51 p.m and on March 4 at 4:22 p.m.
In the pocket of his military uniform, Yuri* keeps one bullet and a letter from an unknown Ukrainian child who he saved when they were caught in a violent Russian onslaught. The objects remind Yuri of his commitment to his homeland, despite the horrors in the eastern city of Bakhmut.
“If there is hell on earth, it is in Bahkmut. Death and pain are all over the place. I don’t want any human being to pass through the things we [saw] there,” Yuri said in a statement to The Journal.
The eastern city became a harbinger of death and destruction in early 2022 as Russian troops relentlessly attempted to occupy the region. Two years later, Bahkmut and other vibrant Ukrainian cities have been levelled by the Russian military and the lives of Ukrainian citizens forever altered.
Today, Russian troops have control over the longtime Ukrainian stronghold of Avdiivka, their most significant advancement since May 2023.
US Republicans in Congress continue to block a $60 billion aid package from reaching Ukraine, even as US President Joe Biden underscores the impact of the war on national security both domestically and internationally.
Biden’s warnings resonate with Ukrainians like Yuri currently serving on the front lines.
“The world must understand very clearly that World War III has already begun. Russia is a territory country with nuclear weapons, and it will not stop at Ukraine,” Yuri said.
Yuri warns of the dangers of Russia’s nuclear power, which were reinforced by Russian President Vladimir Putin’s warning to the West that if they continue to support the Ukrainian war effort, they risk nuclear conflict.
Like Yuri, Borys* said he wants western countries to understand Putin’s murderous intentions in Ukraine. While Borys is remaining calm and collected in the face of perennial conflict, he’s angry as political leaders around the world fail to realize Ukraine is fighting for the preservation of democracy.
“Many of our allies don’t give us enough weapons when it’s needed. Some of them do, but most countries don’t. We’re fighting not just for ourselves, but for them,” Borys said in a statement to The Journal.
The war in Ukraine has resulted in Borys’ divorce. With Borys on the front lines serving as a member of Ukraine’s armed forces and his wife at home, they each became accustomed to living alone.
Prior to their separation, Borys kept a photo of his wife tucked into the pocket of his uniform. The photo now serves as a reminder of what he’s lost because of the war.
Following the two year mark since the spark of the conflict, The Journal spoke to three Ukrainians who escaped the war and now reside in Kingston. Like Borys and Yuri, they shared their experience of war, what they have lost, and their hopes for the future.
***
On February 23, 2022, Maryna Stoliar shut off the lights of her kindergarten classroom in Kyiv. Left behind were stuffed animals, children’s clothes, and colourful paintings—evidence of her students’ uninhibited creativity.
That day, celebratory joy lingered in the atmosphere as the class marked one of her student’s birthdays. The next morning, Stoliar’s country was at war. Her kindergarten classroom remained frozen in time; a symbol of peaceful days now lost.
The kindergarten classroom would never reopen to Stoliar’s students.
Armed with her emergency cookie supply and two suitcases stuffed with their personal belongings, Stoliar and her daughter left Kyiv after Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022.
Stoliar and her daughter spent two nights in Chernihiv. A haven for families escaping the Russian bombings in Kyiv, Chernihiv fell prey to Russian aggression just a few days later.
Expecting ballistic missiles to be launched all over Ukraine, Stoliar decided for the safety of her daughter it was best if they left their country. Their next destination was Poland.
Fear permeated the air as people waited to get on the bus to the Polish-Ukrainian boarder, Stoliar explained in an interview with The Journal. Some individuals suppressed their anxieties, adopting a calm and collected disposition, while the uncertainty of war caused others to spiral into a panic. Stoliar witnessed people physically fighting to secure a seat on the bus.
Stoliar and her daughter landed a seat on the bus and made it to the border where they waited two days before crossing into Poland. Hand-in-hand with her three-year old daughter, she bid her home country goodbye with the expectation that she would be back soon.
She anticipated her stay with family friends in Poland would be short lived. In two weeks, this conflict will be solved, Stoliar thought.
Two years later years, Stoliar is preparing for her daughter’s sixth birthday in the confines of her home in Kingston, Ontario. Two years later, her daughter speaks more English than Ukrainian.
Since the war began, Stoliar’s kindergarten property in Ukraine has been sold. She described her decision to sell her passion project as both painful and emotional.
Stoliar briefly returned to Ukraine. While sifting through objects from her shuttered kindergarten, her daughter picked up a toy tiger and asked if she could bring it with her to Canada. They didn’t have the room in their bags.
“[I told my daughter] we have to leave it behind and she was very upset. I get it because it’s not just about the toy,” Stoliar said. “You are leaving behind your life, everything you have accomplished, and you have to start from scratch again, and again, and again.”
Stoliar lived in both Germany and the United Kingdom before coming to Canada. She moved to Canada in November 2022 and is now perusing a PhD in Education at Queen’s, graduating in 2027. Kristy Timmons, associate professor of early childhood education at Queen’s University, was willing to take Stoliar on as a visiting research student.
On Feb. 24 of this year, Stoliar gathered with fellow Kingston community members for the “Stand with Ukraine” rally near City Hall, organized by the Ukrainian Canadian Congress. Stoliar was happy to see Kingston and Islands MP Mark Gerretsen in attendance at the rally.
While debates over the war remain at the forefront of world leaders’ political agendas, Stoliar encourages ordinary citizens to follow suit. The need to reinforce support for Ukraine as we get further and further away from the spark of the conflict is tantamount, Stoliar explained.
As a Ukrainian herself, the importance of her country’s victory in this war isn’t lost on her.
“If Russia wins this war, there will be no Ukraine,” Stoliar said.
***
Yevheniia Kovalenko woke up on the morning of February 24, 2022 to smoke rising outside her window.
“I didn’t believe it at first. Maybe it was a fire, I thought,” Kovalenko said in an interview with The Journal. “I later found out we were being bombed.”
Her family fled to the periphery of her hometown, Zhytomyr, for the day, unsure how long the conflict was going to last. On the morning of February 25, her family got news that Russia was occupying regions just north of her hometown and were now trying to invade her city.
Amidst the distant sound of gunfire, Kovalenko and her sister hopped in a car with some of her friends and left the city, heading towards Chernivtsi. A drive that should have taken them nine hours took them 24 hours as a barrage of Ukrainians desperate to escape the violence fled the city.
Military vehicles heading in the other direction served as a reminder to Kovalenko of the uncertain future that awaited them.
Staying in Chernivtsi for a few hours with her family friends, she began to receive news the Russian troops were closing in on Kyiv. Realizing the escalating severity of the situation, Kovalenko and her sister went to the nearest bus ticket office and bought tickets to Lithuania.
Lithuania was the closest thing to familiarity Kovalenko could think of. She had attended school in the country for a period.
Over the course of a few weeks, Kovalenko travelled from Lithuania to Austria. The language barrier in Austria posed a problem for both her and her sister. They both knew English better than German, so when the Canada-Ukraine Authorization for Emergency Travel launched, they jumped at the opportunity.
Within a couple of weeks, Kovalenko was on a plane to Canada, leaving her family back in Ukraine. She arrived in Canada in April 2022 and now works at as a law clerk at Templeman LLP in Kingston.
She fears for her parents’ safety in Ukraine, whose age prohibited them from leaving their home. The wail of raid sirens and distant boom of bombs have become their new normal. Her high school was destroyed and the hospital she was born in was damaged.
“A couple of my friends said they saw rockets flying over their houses,” Kovalenko said.
In November, one of Kovalenko’s family members died fighting for the Ukrainian Armed Forces. Four of her other cousins are currently serving in the Ukrainian Armed Forces. They are alive, but due to military security protocols, she doesn’t know where they are fighting in Ukraine.
“It’s heartbreaking,” Kovalenko said. “It’s a horrible, horrible thing that should not be happening in this country.”
Though Kovalenko didn’t expect to come to Canada, she greatly appreciates Canada for providing Ukrainians a safe haven. She wishes to visit to her homeland again when it’s safe to return.
The two-year anniversary of the invasion was a hard day for Kovalenko as she relived the day her life was uprooted. Her mother’s shawl and dad’s pocketknife, which came with her from Ukraine to Canada, serve as relics of hope and reminders of her former life.
***
Solomiia Horbatso, ArtSci ’26, was living a life akin to the average Queen’s University student in February 2022. A student at Taras Shevchenko Kyiv National University, she was excited to be living in the dormitories and was an active member of the student council.
Preparing for a Valentine’s Day celebration with her friends on February 13, Horbatso received a call from her parents that shattered the normalcy of her university life.
There were rumblings of a war, Horbatso’s parents told her over the phone. She needed to leave Kyiv and travel to her parents’ home in the western city of Lviv immediately.
Horbatso didn’t believe her parents claim that her country would be at war with Russian in a matter of days. This is the 21st century, she thought to herself. Full-scale wars don’t happen in this day and age.
On the morning of February 24, 2022, Horbatso woke up in her parents’ home in Lviv to dozens of texts from her friends’ group chat. Instead of posing last-minute review questions for the English midterm Horbatso had that morning, her friends still in Kyiv were messaging each other about the nearest bomb shelter.
Walking into the kitchen to discuss with her parents what to do next, her patriotic Ukrainian grandmother, stained with the memory of constant Russian aggression throughout her lifetime, was crying. Her grandmother couldn’t believe aggression of this manner was happening again.
Horbatso’s family packed up immediately and drove towards the Polish-Ukrainian border. They were met with a six kilometre line upon their arrival. After waiting 16 hours in line, they turned back around to Lviv.
Three days later, surrounded by hundreds of refugees fleeing the incoming Russia troops, Horbatso and her family walked to the border on foot. Their second attempt at crossing the border was successful and on February 26 they entered Poland.
Horbatso left behind her friends and father in Ukraine, who was required to stay for the mobilization effort. He would later support the war effort by driving humanitarian aid and provisions from the Polish border into the Ukrainian centre.
While her mother and younger sister would eventually return to Ukraine, Horbatso moved to Canada in May 2022 to finish her education. Staying in Ukraine to finish her degree was no longer an option.
A Canadian couple hosted Horbatso and informed her about Queen’s University, where she could complete her degree. She started studying global development at Queen’s in September 2022.
She briefly returned to Ukraine in August 2023 to visit her family and was pained by how the war had transformed her hometown into a shell of its former self.
“There are funerals in town and so many men in uniform who came back from the front lines without their limbs,” Horbatso said in an interview with The Journal.
The death and uncertainty of war expedites life, Horbatso explained. Unsure if her partner would return from the frontlines, one of her friends in Ukraine hastily got married and is now expecting a baby.
“In Canada you have the opportunity to think 10 years ahead, but in Ukraine you just live today and maybe tomorrow,” Horbatso said.
Russian leaders have tried to dictate the history of Ukraine for Ukrainians, Horbatso explained. However, the evidence of the country’s historical existence is clear to Horbatso, citing Mykhailo Hrushevsky, leader of the Central Rada in 1917, and Pylyp Orlyk, author of the Ukrainian constitution in 1710.
Ukraine has a long history of fighting for its autonomy and the benefits of such struggle were being realized prior to the commencement of the war, Horbatso explained. For her, life was great.
Two years since the start of the war and now living in Canada, the Ukrainian food stand at the Kingston Farmers Market serves as a gentle reminder of home.
She wishes to return.
*Name changed to protect Ukrainian soldiers on the front line.
Corrections
A previous version of this story incorrectly stated the city Yevheniia Kovalenko fled to.
A previous version of this story incorrectly stated that Yevheniia Kovalenko spent a few days in Chernivtsi, and spelled Chernivtsi incorrectly.
The Journal regrets the error
Tags
Ukraine, Ukraine-Russia conflict
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