Photo provided Yuliia Karkusha is an Ukrainian exchange student attending 11th grade at Hauser Jr.-Sr High School.
As Russia continues its invasion of Ukraine, people all over the world have their eyes on the war.
This is especially true for those from Ukraine who are currently away from home — including Vladyslav Bobuskyi, a first-year student in Indiana University’s J. Irwin Miller Architecture Program.
Bobuskyi is from western Ukraine. Prior to coming to Columbus, he spent about six or seven years in Lviv. His immediate family is in Uzhhorod.
“I’m communicating with them all the time,” he said. “Right now, they’re safe. … But everyone is, of course, they are anxious and afraid of this whole thing, because there is full-fledged war ongoing right now.”
Bobuskyi recently created a GoFundMe campaign to help his mother and younger sister settle somewhere safe in Europe until the war is resolved.
While the Ukrainian military seems to be doing well, Russia has a lot of manpower, said Bobuskyi. His country might be able to hold them off, but their opponent has “too many people.”
He initially found out about the invasion when an ex-girlfriend texted him, “It’s started.”
“I started looking for news, for any news, right away,” he said. “And I couldn’t find anything for 15 or 20 minutes. I was looking on Russian language, I was looking at my language, and then I was looking with English as well, here. I couldn’t find anything. And then all the news started appearing. And I found this link to the speech of President (Vladimir) Putin. …He called it a ‘special operation.’ He’s insane man. He’s just completely out of his mind.”
Bobuskyi also said it’s ironic that in their media, Russians will praise the country for fighting Nazis during World War II — but they are “doing the same thing right now.”
“He (Putin) was like, ‘Yes, we are doing these special operations to free Ukrainian people from their Nazi government,’” he said. “I don’t know what’s in his head. And that’s not the first time they’ve made those accusations. … But that’s not true.”
At present, Bobuskyi’s personal plans are to graduate from the three-year architecture program and spend some time working in the United States to get an understanding of what the profession looks like here, compared to Ukraine, and see if he might want to stay.
Another Ukrainian student in Bartholomew County is hoping to return home — not despite the conflict, but because of it.
“At first, when I just read what happened, the first thing I said was, ‘I want to go home, and I want to make sure that my family is safe,’” said Yuliia Karkusha, an exchange student currently attending 11th grade at Hauser Jr.-Sr High School. “And I was ready to just go home, because I was feeling so confused, because it’s my home. And I cannot help anybody because I’m here.”
Like Bobuskyi, Karkusha is from western Ukraine. Her family is still there, and she tries to text and call them as much as possible.
Her mother has seen people walking right up to the border to cross into Poland. However, Karkusha’s family is currently staying in Ukraine.
“I just hope I’ll be able to go home on a day they assign me,” she said. “Because some of my friends are asking me, ‘Are you going to stay here? How they going to send you home if it’s not safe?’ I don’t know, but I kind of wish I can get home so I can be with my family while they decide what is going to be next.”
Karkusha first heard about the invasion through a group chat with other Ukrainian exchange students. She then found out, through a Ukrainian news channel, that residents in a lot of cities could hear explosions.
“So I immediately called my family, but it was five in the morning, so everybody was sleeping, so I was waiting for an hour for my dad to call me back,” she said. “And when my dad picked up the phone, he was like, ‘What are you talking about? I just woke up.’ So people weren’t ready. They were sleeping, and they didn’t expect that something is going on.”
At times, Karkusha feels guilty for being in the United States during the invasion. She tries to help as much as possible by spreading accurate information and raising funds for Ukraine. She added that it’s important to raise funds not just for the country’s army, but also for humanitarian aid to its people.
Karkusha said that the war is not just between Russia and Ukraine; it is more like a “war for the whole world.” She believes the war will spread if Russia is not stopped.
“We really need to open eyes on this problem and start to work on a solution together,” she said. “…The previous line of Russia was to ‘reunite’ our country, but what they did — instead, they united the whole world together.”
