‘Pray for Ukraine’: Youngstown Ukrainian clergy, parishioners lament Russian invasion

As Father Ivan Tchopko saw the first reports yesterday of bombardments beginning throughout Ukraine, “it just shattered my heart,” he said.

Russia on Thursday launched a full-scale invasion of neighboring Ukraine, airstriking cities and military bases in what the Associated Press reported was the largest ground war in Europe since World War II. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced more than 100 Ukrainian casualties and more than 300 injuries, AP reported early Friday.

The assault is interpreted as an attempt to cut the country off from growing Western influence. Russian President Vladimir Putin has warned interfering countries would face “consequences you have never seen,” AP reported.

Tchopko serves as priest of St. Peter and Paul Ukrainian Orthodox Church along North Belle Vista Avenue, some of whose parishioners immigrated to the U.S. in the last 30 years and still have relatives living in Ukraine.

“They just cannot understand why they can’t be left alone,” he said.

Tchopko himself is of third-generation Ukrainian descent. He was born and raised in Brazil but said his upbringing was steeped in a heritage that only until a few decades ago had been repressed under Soviet control.

“How [are] these things happening in this age of our civilization?” Tchopko asked in a Thursday interview with Mahoning Matters. He said it’s hard to fathom.

Tchopko said though Putin may view Ukraine as “a suburb of Russia, it has its own identity and language. He needs to respect it.”

‘People are willing to fight’

Ukrainian and Russian heritage have been intertwined for more than a millennium, McClatchy News reported. The Ukrainian capital of Kyiv was once the center of the first Slavic state, between the 9th and 13th centuries.

Some of the churches still standing in the city predate the Russian Empire, Tchopko said.

“At that time, Russia did not exist. It was only a forest,” he told Mahoning Matters.

Ukraine was annexed by the Russian Empire in 1793, McClatchy News reported. In 1920, following a brief period of independence, it was incorporated into the Soviet Union.

While Ukraine was behind the Iron Curtain, its language was forbidden in schools and its culture was reduced to “caricatures,” The New York Times reported earlier this month.

“In Ukraine, it’s normal for Ukrainians to speak Russian. During the Soviet regime, the Ukrainian language was repressed,” Tchopko said. “When you would go to school, you had to speak only Russian.”

Since Ukraine broke from the Soviet Union in 1991 following a democratic referendum, the country has faced continuing Russian aggression. But its language has since been “revived among the people,” Tchopko said.

“Only in the last 30 years had Ukraine finally experienced the freedom of democracy,” he said. “I think it’s something that Ukrainians don’t want to lose.

“Our armed forces in Ukraine — they’re not the same size. They don’t have as [many] weapons, airplanes and fighters as Russia. But people are willing to fight because that’s their land. That’s where they have grown.”

Though President Joe Biden and U.S. global allies have since slapped sanctions against Russian trade, Tchopko on Thursday wondered why those penalties didn’t come sooner — perhaps they could have deterred the attack.

“What will sanctions do whilst Ukraine is taken over?” he said. “They’ll have no purpose for us, for Ukraine. It only will protect NATO and the European states.

“But Ukraine will be the one who’s paying for this.”

‘Great injustice’

Father Lubomir Zhybak, of Holy Trinity Ukrainian Catholic Church along West Rayen Avenue, told Mahoning Matters his mother-in-law currently lives in Lviv, near Ukraine’s western border with Poland, and is now moving farther west to live with relatives — but they don’t know for how long. It was an emotional decision for her, Zhybak said.

“She even wrote at one point: ‘Take me with you to live in the United States,’” he said. “She seems to be quite scared. ... [My wife] is upset too. … Great injustice is being done to the Ukrainian people right now.”

Zhybak was born and raised in Ukraine. He moved to the United States and started working as a priest for the Ukrainian Catholic Diocese in 2013, he said. His mother and nephew also live in Ukraine, but not in a threatened area.

“I spoke to my mom and my mom seemed pretty calm, but she was telling me how the shelves are empty and the pharmacy medicines are all sold out,” Zhybak said.

Zhybak said he believes Putin should be held accountable for potential war crimes and the loss of life that has already occurred.

“One important thing to remember is that Ukraine defends itself, and we are not the aggressors,” he said. “I am angry right now because there is no way Ukraine deserves this. … We’re a peaceful nation.”

John Terlesky, a Holy Trinity parishioner and volunteer, said his grandparents were born and raised in Ukraine, and moved to the United States in 2006. He said most Holy Trinity churchgoers have family living in Ukraine who have been impacted by the invasion.

“A lot of my friends came [to America] after World War II in 1948 or 1949. … My friends have a lot of relatives back there so they have been sending packages,” he said. “They’re the ones that are calling and talking to their aunts and uncles, and everybody’s upset, scared and nervous.”

Terlesky knows he still has family in Ukraine, but he hasn’t kept up with them, he said. But he does know they live away from the fighting, just a short drive from the country’s border with Poland. Poland is a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, unlike Ukraine.

Terlesky said his relatives only have “a 5-minute drive into a NATO country.”

Several philanthropic organizations are fundraising for humanitarian aid in Ukraine, including the International Committee of the Red Cross, which has been repairing infrastructure, equipping hospitals and offering food and shelter to Ukrainians since Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014, McClatchy News reported.

Others are funding volunteers to deliver “essential equipment and goods” and first-aid kits for the front lines or offering medical aid to soldiers and their families.

“We ask all those who can to pray for Ukraine, for our people, that they be safe at this time — even if the occupation persists,” Tchopko said Thursday. “Their freedom and their life is the most precious thing.”

The impact at home

It’s expected Americans will feel the impact of Russian hostilities by paying more at the gas pump and at the grocery store.

Russia is the United States’ second-largest foreign oil supplier, behind Canada, McClatchy News reported. If Russia cuts off its oil supply, that will mean higher demand.

Russia is also the world’s largest exporter of wheat, McClatchy News reported. Ukraine is a major producer of wheat, barley, rye and corn, and on Thursday it suspended commercial shipping.

The community-coordinated Ukrainian-Russian War Peace Vigil is set for noon to 1 p.m. today outside the Thomas D. Lambros Federal Building and U.S. Courthouse, 125 Market St. in downtown Youngstown.

The group intends to have a “space for peace” each Friday and is inviting “community groups, organizations, faith groups and all others to join.”