Culture & Community | Downtown | Faith & Spirituality | Politics | New Haven Board of Alders | Ukraine
Friends Marina Kushner and Kateryna McLeod Sunday. Both grew up in Kyiv. Lucy Gellman Photos.
Kateryna McLeod had called to say good night to her family in Kyiv when her sister told her she couldn’t talk on the phone. There were news reports that an airport had been bombed close to the capital. She needed to know what was happening.
Back in Connecticut, McLeod said a quick goodbye. Then she waited for more news.
Sunday, McLeod joined over 200 Ukrainians, Ukrainian-Americans, elected officials, faith leaders and fellow supporters on the New Haven Green to demand an end to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, including shelling attacks and near-constant bombardements that have left over 750 civilians dead in just over a week. Many of the Ukranians present also called for NATO to secure a no-fly zone over Ukraine’s airspace, which would stop Russian bombardements.
The rally was sponsored by St. Mary Protectress Parish Ukrainian Orthodox Church with support from Westville Alder Darryl Brackeen. In addition to members of the state’s Ukrainian-American community, speakers included U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, New Haven Mayor Justin Elicker, Father Oleksandr Yatskiv of St. Mary’s, Father Iura Godenciuc of St. Michael the Archangel Ukrainian Catholic Church, Rabbi Eric Woodward of Congregation Beth-El Keser Israel, historian Marci Shore and others.
"We are all Ukrainian at this moment in our history, standing strong with them, knowing that our own freedom and our own security is at stake,” Blumenthal said at the top of the event. “The people of Ukraine are giving us a lesson in the meaning of courage and conviction. It's a lesson that we all have to learn and relearn throughout history. It's a lesson that our children need to learn as well, for our own freedom is as much in danger at that moment as theirs." 
Top: U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal. Bottom: Jaraoslw Palylyk, Father Oleksandr Yatskiv, Father Oleksandr Ruslanovych, and Myron Melnyk. Above them are Kateryna McLeod and Halia Lodynsky.
Nowhere, perhaps, was that more evident than in the testimonies shared off mic, as attendees arrived in flower crowns, intricate vyshyvanky, thick, brightly patterned wool shawls and the Ukrainian flag itself, knotted like a cape. As they gathered beneath a low-hanging gray sky, some embraced, caught up with church friends, relatives, and multiple generations of family. From a few dozen, the group soon grew to over 200, waves of blue-and-yellow undulating over the crowd.
McLeod, who was born and raised in Kyiv, arrived with her husband Scott and a handmade sign that read “Close the sky over Ukraine/Putin is killing my family.” On it were pictures of her sister Olena and parents, Pyotr and Nadezhda. That her mother’s name means “hope” is one of the things she’s holding onto right now, she said.
She said that the past two weeks have been tortuous. For the first decades of her life, Kyiv was McLeod’s first and only home. The city is where she met and fell in love with her husband, an American, during her time as his language tutor. It’s where she and friends from university checked in with each other long after their years as college students had ended. It is now where her family is watching the destruction of their homeland from within it.
Every day, she calls them in the afternoon—Ukraine is seven hours ahead—to say goodnight. During Sunday’s call, Olena told her that there was news of a missile attack on a civilian airport. Olena told her sister that “planes from Belarus are moving towards Kyiv,” McLeod added—more specific news of which she couldn’t find anywhere. Then she said she had to go.
“It’s not easy to leave,” McLeod said. “Right now, we need to close the sky. We can fight on land. But when they are bombing us, there is nothing we can do.”
At points during Sunday’s rally, she moved arm-in-arm with fellow Ukrainian Marina Kushner, who grew up in Kyiv and has family still in the city. Currently, Kushner’s brother, mother, stepfather and son all still live there, and are simply trying to survive. While her brother fights for Ukraine, her son has begun driving families from Kyiv to the Polish and Romanian borders.
When he completes a trip—which sometimes takes days, as infrastructure collapses around him—he comes back to Kyiv and begins another. Kushner said she’s hoping for his safety—and for more military aid to Ukraine. Like McLeod, she too wants to see a no-fly zone, for which Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has asked repeatedly in the past days. The two hadn’t known each other before Sunday, and promised to stay in touch.
Near the Green’s flagpole, Rabbi Michael Farbman of Temple Emanuel of Greater New Haven said that the news coming out of Ukraine has felt “like your heart is skipping a beat.” Kyiv is one of a handful of places he has called home. Born in Belarus, Farbman spent years in Kyiv before Rabbinical training and work that also took him to Moscow, St. Petersburg, London and Connecticut. For the past week and a half, he’s been in touch with family, friends and colleagues who are still there, some leading Shabbat services from bomb shelters.
“I know that there are literal bombs, but culturally, it’s a bomb blowing up in the middle of my life,” he said.
Top: Iryna and Michael Mykytey with his mother, Halyna Mykytey, and their 12-year-old daughter Anastasia. Bottom: The crowd at Sunday's event.
Nearby, Michael Mykytey gathered with his parents, wife Iryna, and 12-year-old daughter Anastasia in a sea of blue-and-yellow flags. As Iryna fixed ribbons and pins on her coat, Anastasia steadied a matching sign that read “We Stand Together for Ukraine,” decorated with blue and yellow hearts in magic marker.
Raised in Western Ukraine, Mykytey came to Connecticut in 2001, and built a life for himself and his family in Norwalk. Just over a week ago, a ringing phone woke him up in the middle of the night. It was relatives in Lviv, saying that a war had started and they were finding a way to leave the country. While they were able to cross the border into Poland and flee to safety, he knows that not everyone is guaranteed safe passage.
“It’s been a lot of sleepless nights,” he said. “We need support from the U.S. They [Russians] come into our homes and are killing our families.”
“Whenever You Hurt, I Hurt”
Brackeen: "Folks, democracy is on the line today, and that's why we're here."
During the rally, speakers from politicians to priests pledged their support for Ukraine, their remarks mingling with cries of “No-fly zone!” “Save our kids!” “Close our skies!” and “Slava Ukraini!/Heroiam slava!" While elected officials made no vows on a no-fly zone, several endorsed sanctions on Russian goods including oil, gas, and vodka. Several also prayed for peace in languages that included English, Ukrainian, Polish, Old Slavonic, and a cacophonous outpouring of song.
"Whenever you hurt, I hurt,” said Brackeen, whose ward includes St. Mary’s. “We've been looking at the news for months. This didn't just happen yesterday. We had heard the threats of the mad man [Putin] imposing his will and power over a free people. Folks, democracy is on the line today, and that's why we're here."
Liubomyr Mykytyn, a young activist with the New Britain Diaspora Perspective, thanked attendees for coming out to show their support. As a Ukrainian himself, he expressed his gratitude to Poland for opening its borders, and to the U.S. for military and humanitarian aid during this time. Then he issued a staunch warning: what has happened in Ukraine can happen anywhere. He saw that clearly in the speed with which Russians attacked the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Station, he said.
“We still need help,” he said. “Especially closing the sky above Ukraine. We are not asking you to provide our soldiers and our country with equipment which kills. We are asking you to provide us with equipment which protects. We are asking you to provide us with equipment which saves lives.”
Top: A march around the Green that followed Sunday's rally. Bottom: Liubomyr Mykytyn, who goes by Louis.
Many turned to the traditions of art, poetry, storytelling and scripture in their remarks. Woodward, who arrived at BEKI last year, said that he has been thinking about the upcoming festival of Purim, which Jews across the globe will celebrate in mid-March. In the Purim story—the megillah—a small army of Persian Jews is able to rise up against a megalomaniacal tyrant who wants to see them dead because his ego is bruised.
For Woodward, whose congregation includes Jews from Ukraine, the story resonates. Ukraine is a deep part of the history of the Jewish diaspora, from before the nineteenth century through the Holocaust through the late twentieth and now twenty-first centuries. Last week, Russians bombed and damaged a memorial at Babyn Yar, a ravine outside of Kyiv where over 33,000 Jews were massacred in 1941.
“Zhytomyr, and Chernobyl, and Lviv, and Odessa and Kyiv—these are some of the most important cities for Jewish people over the years,” he said. “And they have always meant so much to us, and they continue to mean that today as we stand with Ukraine.
“Today we see a new tyrant, and we hope for and pray for a new Purim,” he said. “We hope for his plans to be overturned … and destroyed. And for that we call upon the banning of Russian oil, of blood oil. We call for protection and the transmission of airplanes through Poland and other places to Ukraine. But most of all, we send our love and our dedication to walk with you in this process.”
“Today we see a new tyrant, and we hope for and pray for a new Purim,” said Rabbi Eric Woodward.
Marci Shore, an associate professor of history at Yale University, looked to poetry and language to make her point. Eight years ago, Shore witnessed the Maidan Revolution, during which she saw on the streets of Ukraine “the best of what human beings are capable of,” she said. It is now the subject of her book The Ukrainian Night: An Intimate History of Revolution.
Sunday, she said that such recent history, coupled with current history, has led her to think of Wladyslaw Bartoszewski’s poem “He Is From My Homeland,” as well as the Polish revolutionary slogan “Za nasza̧ i wasza̧ wolność” (“For Our Freedom and Yours”). Both urge readers or listeners to think of themselves as each other’s—that they have a collective responsibility to protect both their local and global communities.
“They are very, very possibly fighting for all of us,” she said.
A few speakers later, St. Mary’s member and impromptu emcee Iryna Kokovskyy held her phone up to the mic. As strains of the Ukrainian National Anthem began to seep out across the Green, hundreds of voices joined in.
Top: Marching on the Green for Ukraine. Bottom: Catherine John of Black and Brown United in Action speaks across the street an hour earlier.
Across the street an hour earlier, another peaceful rally called for an end to violence not only in Ukraine, but also across the globe and within what some attendees saw as their own communities. Chanting “End Russian rocket fire/End U.S. empire!” “No war!/no warming!/Another world is possible!” and “The people/United/Will never be defeated,” 20 protesters gathered on the steps of the U.S. Courthouse directly across from the Green to denounce war, imperialism, and class conflict.
They included representatives from Unidad Latina en Acción, Black and Brown United in Action, the “New Era Young Lords,” Central Connecticut Democratic Socialists of America and others. Among fiery remarks, Black and Brown United’s Catherine John urged attendees to remain focused on the state’s current legislative session as a way to bring some of their social justice work to fruition.
She added that she sees racism as a war she—and other people who look like her—must fight every day at home. During the pandemic, that has been especially true as unemployment and high Covid rates disproportionately affect Black and Latino communities.
For more from Sunday's rally, visit the Arts Council for video coverage of the event on Facebook.