Student reflects on first anniversary of Russian invasion of Ukraine

Sam Kozlowski

Contributing Writer

Shockwaves from the Russian-Ukrainian war continue to impact the world as the invasion by Russian forces has reached its one-year anniversary.

Putin ordered Russian troops into Eastern Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022. Both sides expected a quick victory against their opponent, although that has not been the case.

“No one expected it would be a war. We thought this would only take a few days,” said Karina Yurchenko, a UCO tennis player who experienced the beginning of the war firsthand.

The capital city of Kyiv has been the primary target for Russian forces.

Yurchenko’s family moved from St. Petersburg, Russia to Irpin, about 6 miles west of Kyiv, after her hometown in Ukraine was invaded in 2014.

“February 24 was a regular day,” Yurchenko said. “I had school online because one of my classmates had COVID. I planned to go to my tennis club and then went to my job as a Chinese tutor to teach lessons. I slept really well that night, but when I woke up, I saw so many messages about explosions and then class was canceled because of the war. I saw 15-20 Russian helicopters in the sky and then we heard so many explosions for 10 minutes until they would pause. And then the explosions would start again.”

Russia bombed Hostomel Airport near Kyiv to prevent Ukraine from having a military advantage in the air.

“I’ve had so many nightmares in my life, but this was the worst because it was not a dream,” Yurchenko said. “It was reality. My parents and I tried to pretend like everything is OK for my younger siblings.”

In the beginning of the war, Yurchenko chose to support students in Ukraine by providing free Chinese, Korean and Japanese lessons on YouTube.

Approximately 8,006 civilians have been killed since the war began, according to the United Nations. Of the victims, 487 were children.

“I was really scared,” Yurchenko said. “This was the first time in my life where I was thinking about death and that I don’t want to die. I have so many dreams to make true.”

Conflict between the neighboring countries began in 2014. Russia annexed the Crimean

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Peninsula and invaded Donetsk and Lugansk from Ukraine in an effort to protect a high population of former Soviet Union personnel and civilian population, according to Putin.

“The exact place I was born, Donetsk City, was invaded in 2014. So my family decided we were going to support our hometown and didn’t want to live in Russia because of its aggression,” said Yurchenko.

The attack on the peninsula has allowed for Russia to maintain control of the waters in the Black Sea, south of Ukraine.

NATO has inched closer towards Russian borders since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989 and Putin sees this as a threat towards his home country.

Russia has the most nuclear warheads in the world and NATO sees their aggression as a threat to world peace. This started a conflict between the Russian government and the governments within NATO.

Putin’s nationalism is a driving factor in carrying out military operations against Ukraine. The country gained independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, but Putin claims that Ukrainian soil is still rightfully part of Russia.

Ethnically, Russian and Ukrainian people have different cultures, which is where the conflict is. Ukrainians are desperately fighting for their independence.

Over 8 million refugees have fled Ukraine since the war started.

Many countries are supporting Ukrainian refugees, including Eastern European countries like the Czech Republic, Poland, Estonia and others. Further west, more countries are taking refugees such as Germany, France, the United States and Canada.

“A few hours after we left our city to head west, all the bridges and roads in Irpin were blown up to limit access for Russian soldiers,” Yurchenko said. “Usually it takes five hours to drive to Lviv (in Western Ukraine), but so many people were fleeing the country, it took 15 hours due to the traffic jam.”

Food prices are at all time highs in locations around the world due to the ongoing war. Ukraine accounts for about 10% of the world’s wheat production, according to the European Union in a data study in May 2022.

Much of Ukraine’s grain is exported to Africa and the Middle East, so shipments are affected and can be delayed by the war.

Prices for goods and energy are rising because of the war, including oil. Russia is the second largest crude oil exporter in the world. The country exports roughly 5 million barrels of crude oil per year, according to a CIA statistic in 2015.

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