Ukrainian community protest ongoing invasion

Antonina fights back the tears. She bites her lip. But it’s all too much. She’s overcome. Her son Valentin Lyashenko wraps one large arm around his mother by way of comfort. But he shares in her despair.

“It’s a lot,” he says in reply to a question about her family that remain back in the Ukraine. “She has a sister, friends, and a little dog.”

Both Antonina and Valentin’s daughter, Karina Lyashenko, are refugees who have fled the war in Ukraine.

Antonina is from a small town not far from the central Ukrainian city of Kremenchuk, where a shopping centre was struck with Russian fired missiles on June 25. Footage of the attack and the aftermath, when shared, shocked the world.

Karina, a student journalist, was in school when the attack occurred. She still remembers the terror that engulfed her home city. She was also among a growing number of media savvy Ukrainians to use her online presence to contradict the near immediate volley of stories spread by Russian Telegram channels and by Dmitry Polyanskiy, Russia’s deputy ambassador to the UN, claiming the attack was “false” or “staged”. The assertions were just as widely repeated on Russian television.

In Ireland, Karina has begun writing for an audience back home, telling the stories of Ukranian people now living in Ireland, specifically Cavan. The message she sends is one of finding a country that stands with Ukraine and its people in solidarity. The sentiment for the future is one of hope.

Both Antonina and Karina arrived in Ireland on July 23. Three days later they joined their fellow Ukrainians at Cavan Town’s Market Square to demonstrate against the invasion by Russia, and to mark five months since the conflict first began.

Valentin asked them to pack as much as they could, and leave Ukraine for Ireland. “I was worried about them,” he says in earnest. “But my mother, she wants to go home again.”

When she becomes upset, he says the emotion of the situation is very raw for all concerned. “It’s hard for her to talk about. She has left everything behind. She is worried about her friends and family. She misses her old life. She likes it here, and I’m trying to keep her here, but war or not she still says ‘home is home’.”

Larysa Sakala from Northern Ukraine near the border with Belarus also still has family in Ukraine. “It’s quiet now, but they don’t know what’s going to happen five days from now,” she admits of an unnerving situation that remains constantly in flux.

Ukrainian military continue to report widespread Russian shelling in the eastern half of the country. A strike on the port of Odesa last Saturday was denounced by Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky as “barbarism”, as Russia builds in its preparations to launch an assault on Bakhmut in the industrial Donbas region.

More than 14,000 people are reported dead following the invasion, and many more injured.

Larysa has lived in Ireland for 19 years. Ireland is her “home”, yet she feels for her fellow countrymen and women greatly. “You feel helpless. In the first few weeks, we were in total shock - go to work, watch the news, go to bed,” she says of watching reports on the news.

Larysa is a stalwart within the Ukrainian community living locally, and is a member of the Cavan Cross Cultural Community (4C). She is also now working with Cavan County Local Development, formerly Breffni Integrated, engaging with the influx of refugees sheltering from the war.

The work is rewarding, but “difficult” admits Larysa, especially when she hears stories from those who have survived harrowing ordeals, and are still struggling to come to terms with the tragic loss of family, homes, and community.

She strongly believes that many refugees will need access to specialist therapy and psychological support going forward. Some are already displaying the visible affects of displacement, together with anxiety, and depression.

“Some of them have seen terrible things. Some have lost family. Still we don’t have this level of help yet. But we plan to. We have a Ukrainian helping with counselling but, yes, we need to do more.”

Her husband Yuriy explains how the couple opened their home to two Ukrainian families to date.

His family back home in Ukraine, near the Polish border, have also done their best to ease the pain of refugees flowing westwards.

“We’ve had two young families, one from around Kyiv, in an area bombed very hard when the war started. She saw the helicopters and strikes near her town and just grabbed her child and drove towards Bulgaria, and then Turkey. But in Turkey she could only stay for 60 days officially. She then came to us in Ireland and stayed with us for two months. We’ve another family now, the mother is working and her child attends the local primary school with our daughter.”

Yuriy says, for many, the longer the war goes on, the slimmer the prospect of making it “back home” appears. Those who have begun to integrate with the wider Irish community however are “doing well”.

He becomes visibly emotional as he tries to put into words his appreciation for the support refugees have already received. “It’s hard...” he says, his voice breaking, eyes welling up. “We do what we can to help. Irish people, I know it’s a hard time for everyone; a lot of families are suffering. We know this. For what they’ve done, and still are doing, it means a lot.”

Julie Chapoval is from Poltava. Next stop east is the frontline in the battle between Ukraine and the imposing Russian forces. She lived not far from Kharkiv, which has seen some of the worst fighting since war began on February 24, 2022. The revolt in the city of Kharkov, so heavily covered by the world’s media, was expunged in blood and terror. Explosions continue to ring out at night, and largely abandoned apartment complexes, those still standing, shelter people left behind.

Since moving to Ireland four months ago, among the second waves of refugees, Julie has busied herself by volunteering to teach Ukrainian primary school children her home country’s art and culture. “It’s important,” she believes, and even more so seeing as of the many young Ukrainians may not return to the country of their birth for quite some time.

“As much as everyone else has supported us, we have to support each other as well.”

Anna Kovalenko and Nataliia Zakutnia are sisters who arrived in Ireland with their children in mid-June.

They’ve been residing at The Hatch in Ballinagh, among two dozen families there, and several hundred more currently occupying whatever accommodation is made available to them in Cavan.

For them, what’s vital, is that their children feel “safe”.

Fianna Fáil TD Brendan Smith was among a smattering of local political faces to lend their support to the last Sunday’s protest. Present too was Patricia Walsh, Cathaoirleach of the Cavan-Belturbet Municipal District area, and Fine Gael’s Madeleine Argue.

Deputy Smith condemns the invasion, and states the international community “must not lose focus” in supporting Ukraine. He also says that the support does not end once fighting stops, and that the challenge then is trying to rebuild all that has been destroyed.

“A strong rebuilt Ukraine will be great for the European Union. We as a country have championed that position going back many years as a member State. There is terrible suffering being inflicted in Ukraine, we see it where people, many elderly, have been sheltering in some cases in a basement for more than a month without proper sanitation, basic necessities. Everyday there are people being murdered. We must not lose focus in our support for the people of Ukraine against this evil regime.”

Sergiy Balan hails from Vinnytsia, once considered among the “safest” regions within Ukraine. That was until July 14 last when Russian propelled rockets killed at least 23 people, including three children, in what Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called “an open act of terrorism”.

His elderly parents, both of whom survived World War II, still live there. Neither is prepared to leave. Similarly his brothers and their forthright determination to remain is a source of constant “worry” for him.

Sergiy is one of the core organisers behind the Cavan Town demonstration. He’s also among those behind the opening of the Palyanytsya Ukrainian Hub, aiming to provide displaced people from Ukraine in Cavan with clothing, essential items and information.

He welcomed the turnout on Sunday, but is concerned the focus on the war in Ukraine is waning as more pressing matters closer to home dominate the public consciousness.

“We don’t see the Ukraine war often on the front page anymore. I can understand that and why that’s happening. But what people need to realise is the cost of living and many of the other problems, is being caused because Russia invaded Ukraine. Before the war started Dmitry Medvedev (former President of Russia) said this would happen. He said [Russia] would struggle at the start, but after it’ll be forgotten and then accepted. We saw it happen in 2014.

“We cannot forget. We must not forget. If people forget, they let this happen and the wars continue. Where does it end? Moldova? Hitler invaded Czechoslovakia, next was Poland. Look where that ended. War is dangerous, but it is more dangerous to do nothing and let it happen!”