Ukrainians abroad: Lost and frightened but desperate to help
The day before Russia invaded Ukraine a friend of mine came over for dinner. She is Ukrainian, like me. We stayed up til the early hours of Thursday discussing the escalation at the border, the possible scenarios, the best way to convince our families to come here or whether we should make an effort to return home.
We managed to sleep for a couple of hours before it was time to get up for work. When we met at the kitchen for an early morning coffee both of us already knew the war had started but didn't say a word. Before I put the kettle on, my friend already had a list of items to be sent to help the army and civilians back home and was looking for the most necessary and urgent ones.
If there is something I can be thankful for, it’s that I faced the most difficult news in my life with someone who could understand how it feels, and who was more into action than words.
And the most important thing, of course, is that my family in my native Kyiv is still intact. I failed to convince them to move to safety when it was still possible, I didn’t try hard enough, I have to live with that.
I believe, most Ukrainians living abroad feel the same way. Here in the west, the news about my home country was really scary for some months, at home - the authorities from the state office and ski resort were telling Ukrainians not to panic.
But now my country, my native city, is being ruined, all those lives lost… I think it hasn't really got to me yet. One thing appears loud and clear, nothing is left of our normal lives, it has all been ruined by the Russian invasion.
The guilt, shame and despair of not being home right now overwhelms me. As a journalist, during the past seven years, I travelled a lot to the Ukrainian east to bring the
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