Alina Redka, who grew up in Kyiv, Ukraine, says the Russian invasion of her native nation is “like a knife within the coronary heart.”
“That is my land and that is my individuals, and it's being attacked,” mentioned Redka, a San Rafael resident. “I can’t cease considering of the trauma, of the phobia.”
Now a software program engineer, she remembers her childhood as secure and free from a lot of the turmoil of the aftermath of the Soviet Union breakup. She recalled excursions out within the nation, the place she helped her mother and father lay cement for a second residence.
“I by no means thought that now, 30 years from then, my mother and father could be sheltering within the basement I helped them construct,” she mentioned. “I’m so grateful for the home we constructed. Blood and tears.”
Redka is amongst a group of Ukrainians residing in Marin County who're intently watching a conflict raging of their homeland greater than 6,000 miles away. Some have launched into bold efforts to prepare native motion, from prayer to direct help, for his or her residence nation.
Nataliia Karpenko, a resident of Kentfield, mentioned she left Kyiv final week after a go to to see her household as the specter of invasion mounted. Now, they continue to be stranded within the metropolis of Odessa. She is distressed that her household and family members haven't been in a position to evacuate.
”My mother and father mentioned if Grandpa can’t go away, none of us are going to depart,” she mentioned.
Karpenko begged her mother and father to evacuate, however they confronted two obstacles — her aged grandfather didn't have a world passport and didn't have time to compete for one with different refugees.
“No one ever believed it could occur,” Karpenko mentioned.
Karpenko mentioned she is happy with Ukrainians who're keen to battle for his or her nation and for freedom, having skilled a few years of battle and threats of dropping an unbiased authorities to Russia’s management.
“Ukrainian persons are extra ready for this. They're extremely proud for democracy,” she mentioned.
In San Anselmo, St. Nicholas Orthodox Church has turn out to be a focus of the group response.
The Rev. Stephan Meholick was one among 11 Orthodox Church leaders current throughout a ceremony in Menlo Park this week that gathered Ukrainians, Russians and members of the general public in a solemn prayer for peace, he mentioned.
The prayer, which known as for “mercy, life, peace, well being, salvation, for many who are struggling, wounded, grieving, or displaced due to the conflict in Ukraine,” encapsulated his views on the subject, he mentioned.
St. Nicholas has about 110 energetic members, of whom about 20 are ethnic Russians. The remainder come from quite a lot of Jap European nations, together with Ukraine, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Georgia.
Olga Volkova, who's ethnically half-Ukrainian and half-Russian, is one member of that group hoping for a swift and peaceable decision.
“They may get up for his or her sovereignty and for his or her independence and their land,” she mentioned. “It’s an absolute tragedy, it doesn't matter what form of race, what sort of shade, what sort of nationality. We’re nonetheless human beings.”
Volkova, who works for an promoting firm and lives in Terra Linda, got here to the USA on a basketball scholarship for the College of California, Berkeley.
Her mom was sheltered in a closet when a missile hit her condominium constructing in Chernihiv on Sunday, she mentioned. The impression shattered the home windows and blew out the doorways. Her mom is alive and has not left, Volkova mentioned.
“There actually is nowhere to go at this level,” she mentioned. “I feel we should always keep sturdy and I felt just like the world wants to listen to it. All of us must understand how horrible and the way unhuman what’s taking place there proper now.”
Denys Nevozhai, a Mill Valley resident, has been attempting to relocate his mother and father and his spouse’s mother and father from Kyiv to security. They're all of their 70s.
“They don’t have a automobile. They don't seem to be fashionable, they aren't tech-savvy,” he mentioned.
Nevozhai, beforehand a pro-Ukrainian revolutionary from Kyiv who participated within the 2004 Orange Revolution, has been frightened concerning the creep of Russian affect in Ukraine for 20 years. He mentioned he was shocked “as everybody was” on the surprising boldness of Russia’s army incursion.
At first, the mother and father refused to depart, even because the shootings and the bombings escalated.
“Their home is principally their world,” he mentioned. “That is the one factor they've.”
However in current days, they’ve turn out to be extra amenable to transferring. On Friday, they have been scheduled to cross the border into Poland from Lviv, the most important metropolis in western Ukraine.
“It’s roughly secure there proper now,” he mentioned.
The U.N.-affiliated Worldwide Group for Migration, citing authorities ministry information, mentioned about 1.25 million individuals had left Ukraine as of Friday, based on the Related Press. The nation’s inhabitants is about 40 million.
The U.N. mentioned greater than 300 individuals have died because the invasion began.
Olga Panfilova, a dental hygienist who lives in San Rafael, is sending cash to her mother and father who're hiding of their properties close to the Dnieper River in central Ukraine. She has been impressed by the resolute, rallying press conferences from Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, which have gone viral globally.
“We’re all hoping for the miracle. The individuals there, I'd say earlier than they elected the president, they'd their doubts. Now everyone seems to be on the identical web page,” Panfilova mentioned. “I’m actually proud, although we left years in the past.”
Redka, like many others, is battling the way to get cash, info and help on to relations abroad. She plans to get her mother and father to the house of her in-laws in Bulgaria when she will present them with funds.
Karpenko has a web-based fundraising marketing campaign to assist Ukraine with the San Francisco nonprofit Highly effective Girls Worldwide Connections. The marketing campaign goals to supply cash for bulletproof vests, helmets and tactical gloves, in addition to medical provides and meals for moms and youngsters who haven't been evacuated from Ukraine but. The fundraising web site is at bit.ly/3IOK7Xq.
The Orthodox Church is elevating cash for victims of the disaster at iocc.org.