Lorain parish members attend rally for Ukraine in Washington, D.C.

As her husband drove them back from Washington, D.C., Tatiana Panas sat in the passenger seat Sunday, still struck by the sea of blue and yellow they were apart of the day before.

Tatiana and Russ Panas, of Sandusky, attended a rally in the capital to mark the one-year anniversary of the most recent Russian invasion of Ukraine. Tatiana is parish board president for St. Mary’s Ukrianian Orthodox Church in Lorain.

On Feb. 24, 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine from the north, east and south, escalating a conflict that began years earlier.

On Feb. 25, 2023, Ukrainian supporters rallied on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in the National Mall. There was a program, speakers, Tatiana Panas said, and about 1,000 people gathered to listen and be a part of the crowd.

“There is a kind of energy that lives in a space where people come together for a cause that they believe in and that they have in common,” she said.

“It is quite unique. I suppose it’s not unlike what some people feel about attending church — you share something with this group, so there is something that lives in that space when people come together to support a cause and be heard by others.”

It wasn’t the first rally for either of them, Tatiana